


Aftershocks

by bookreader93



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drarry, Good Dudley Dursley, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I will normalize Snagrid I swear to God, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lucius Malfoy's A+ Parenting, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Redeemed Dudley Dursley, Severitus | Severus Snape is Harry Potter's Parent, Snagrid - Freeform, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-28 18:57:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20783507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookreader93/pseuds/bookreader93
Summary: Everyone tries to move on with their lives in the aftermath of the Second Wizarding War. There are not a lot of slashy scenes in this, just one or two here and there, but I hope you guys like it!





	1. New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [younoknowme93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/younoknowme93/gifts).

> There is a reference about halfway through the story to this fanfic listed below:
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11526921/chapters/25875159
> 
> It's weird, but it's good, and the credit for that one goes to younoknowme93

Rain was falling in curtains outside the Hogwarts Express. Lanterns lit the path from the train to the carriages that would take them up to the castle, the thestrals stomping and snorting in anticipation. With the war having ended last spring, most of the students who fought in the last battle could see the thestrals now. In fact, with all the destruction the war had brought, most of the students _period_ could see them now.

Including Draco Malfoy. He swallowed hard, his dark robes swirling around his feet as he watched the students file out of the steam engine and onto the platform. He could spot the rest of his new house, Ambrosius, by the purple trim of their uniform, a symbol that they were the final class of students the year before, the ones who had been left to fight the war both in the school and out on the frontlines. Headmistress McGonagall had invited them back for an opportunity to try again. She had also held every year back, so that now there were twice as many tiny, frightened first years as usual. Part of him was glad that he wouldn’t be in his old Slytherin house anymore, with how crowded the common room was bound to be, and part of him wished for the familiarity of the dungeons. They had been told that they would be housed in one of the other towers of the castle, all together, and Draco didn’t know how many of his old friends would bother returning, seeing as most of them had been on the “losing” side of the war, as if either side had escaped the war unscathed, as if this whole mess had been as simple as scoring more points or catching a golden sphere. He doubted that those who survived would see much point in returning to a place that would now hate them. Indeed, he couldn’t for the life of himself understand what had persuaded him to try again. He just knew, deep down, that making amends had to start somewhere, and it seemed appropriate to make amends at the place where his sharp turn down the wrong path had first begun.

Draco shook himself. He was being stupid. He didn’t know what he was going to see until he actually got up and went into the damn school. Taking a deep breath, he stood and made his way out of his lonely compartment. He hadn’t really wanted anyone with him, wanting the train ride to sort through his thoughts. At the last second, he flicked his wand, causing the illusion of a crowded, happy train car to disappear. He sighed. Despite everything, he still would have liked to know he had at least one friend here.

He made it three compartments down when he heard it. A heaving, terrified sort of gasping, as if the owner of the lungs couldn’t manage to fit enough air inside to breathe properly. He peered inside the compartment doors and found it empty, but he was sure he heard someone…

Draco slid the compartment door open cautiously, his wand out and ready, but the frightened sounds paid him no mind.

“Hello?” he called.

Something twitched out of the corner of his eye, and Draco found himself staring, frozen in shock.

Potter was curled up under one of the train seats, his hands curled too tightly in his hair, his knees drawn up to his chest, his eyes wide and frantic, pupils contracted to tiny black pinpricks behind his glasses, his chest heaving as he tried to bring air into his body that refused to come. Tears were streaming down his face, and he was rocking as best he could while lying on the floor.

Without thinking, Draco found himself kneeling slowly onto the floor, his wand stowed back inside his robes, his eyes never leaving Potter’s face.

“Potter?” he said softly.

Potter’s eyes darted over to where Draco sat, and his face paled, but the fright in his eyes tried to become defiance.

“No,” Draco said, guessing the reason for the change. “I’m not here to…I want to help,” he said, calmly and quietly. “Can you come out?”

Potter shook his head, and though he fought it as hard as he could, a few more tears leaked out.

“That’s alright,” he said, still forcing his voice to be calm even if his hands were shaking. “Can you take my hand?” he held out his left hand.

Potter hesitated, and then cautiously took one hand from his hair and placed it on Draco’s palm.

“Very good,” Draco offered encouragingly, wrapping his fingers gently but securely around Potter’s. “Easy, now.” He stretched out his other hand. “Can you give me your other one?”

Potter took longer this time, but finally allowed his other hand to leave his hair as well.

“Alright, now.” Draco placed both of Potter’s hands on the floor of the compartment. “Feel the floor. It’s solid, isn’t it?”

Potter gasped, gulped, and then nodded.

“It’s solid. It’s safe. You’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you here.” He kept his hands over top of Potter’s, not holding them there but offering reassurance, and whispered gently about how he was safe, until at last his breathing began to slow, and the air came into his lungs easier, and the rocking slowed to a halt. Potter closed his eyes, breathing very deliberately through his nose, and then slowly started to crawl, somewhat awkwardly, out from under the seat, carefully not looking Draco in the face.

“Are you alright?” Draco asked.

Potter nodded, staring at the floor.

“I get them too sometimes,” Draco found himself saying. “Flashbacks, or unwelcome reminders…they set me off every now and then as well. If you like, I can teach-”

Potter was suddenly on his feet, shaking his head at Draco. He was almost out the door already.

“Potter?”

Potter stopped in the doorway.

“I don’t blame you for what you think of me,” Draco found himself saying. “It’s nothing I don’t already think about myself. I’ll not bore you with long explanations about whether or not I’ve changed, because those speeches never sway anybody. I just…” he breathed deeply. “I appreciate what you did for me. In the Room of Requirement. And at the Ministry, last month.”

Potter turned slightly, staring at Draco.

“You didn’t have to defend my mum, and you didn’t have to defend me.” Draco lifted his eyes. “I won’t forget that.”

After a few heartbeats, Potter nodded, and then Draco was alone in the compartment once again.

By the time Draco had left the train and reached the platform, all of the carriages had gone. Potter was making his way alone towards the wrought iron gates of the school, but Draco noticed that he slowed his pace just slightly, so that without trying to Draco caught up to him easily. The rain became heavier, pelting at them as they walked in silence. Potter seemed unbothered by this, but Draco felt himself shivering uncontrollably after only a few minutes, his arms wrapped around himself and trying to silence the sound of his teeth chattering. He wanted to say something, anything, but Potter had made it abundantly clear that he wanted the silence, however uncomfortable it might be.

They reached the entrance hall, and no sooner had the doors shut than footsteps echoed from the chambers beyond; Professor McGonagall appeared, her eyes on Potter.

“There you are!” she sighed in relief. “What happened?” Her eyes found Draco, but she made no comment.

Potter opened his mouth several times, and at last croaked out, “I…I took a fall…and I…I got stuck…” His eyes too, darted towards Draco, who read the plea behind them.

“His ankle was caught,” Draco entered easily. “Nothing serious, but he was having a bit of trouble untangling himself, that’s all. He’s alright now.”

Potter nodded his assent.

McGonagall looked suspicious, but she didn’t argue. “Very well; in that case you’d best join the feast. The Sorting is over.” As an afterthought, she flicked her wand at Potter, whose robes steamed, hissed, and were suddenly perfectly dry. She nodded to them and walked back into the Great Hall, where the two young men followed, one trying to flatten his hair over his forehead, the other pulling his soaked robes more tightly around himself and trying not to shiver too obviously.

The Great Hall was even more crowded than usual; the new first years were sitting at their new house tables, and a fifth table, shorter than the others, had been added for Ambrosius House. Draco looked up and down the table, taking note of who had decided to return; Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had of course returned, as well as many of the former Gryffindors. He recognized several others from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, but the longer and harder he looked the more worried he became; he couldn’t find a single person other than himself from Slytherin. He had known that Crabbe and Goyle would not come; one was dead and the other was in Azkaban, and to be frank, he was rather relieved by this. It would be nice to have a year where they weren’t looking over his shoulder, reporting back to their parents about him, who would then keep his father informed about his habits while he was at school. He had hoped at least that Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini would decide to come; they were some of the few Slytherins who had managed to escape the conflict of having parents who were Death Eaters, and so there had never been much pressure on them to join up with the Dark Lord, and therefore (Draco had hoped) no animosity towards them should they decide to return. Unless something else had swayed their decision to leave off their last year of Hogwarts, Draco had been wrong to assume that his fellow Slytherins would be made to feel welcome. This did not bode well for him.

“Do…” Potter cleared his throat. “Do you want to sit with us?”

Draco tried not to stare.

“I…yeah…” Draco said before he’d realized he’d started talking. Potter made a brave attempt at a smile, which Draco returned. He followed Potter, and they took their seats next to Granger and Weasley, who both looked at Draco with their eyebrows raised, but other than that made no comment about this new development in their friend’s choice of acquaintance.

Draco paid little attention to what happened during the rest of the feast. The longer he spent in the Great Hall, the more he regretted his decision to come back to Hogwarts. The teachers were professional as ever, McGonagall made it perfectly clear that she welcomed all the students, whatever their background. Professor Snape had agreed to return to the school as Potions Master, which was a relief to Draco; it would be nice to have one teacher that understood the torture he had endured. He was not alone in applauding this announcement; Potter clapped enthusiastically as well, and so did anyone who had read the _Daily Prophet_ interviews he had given about his knowledge of what Snape had really gone through, how much he had risked for the sake of saving the wizarding world. Snape looked extremely uncomfortable, though somewhat touched, at the response of his students. He gave an awkward smile and an odd twitch of his hand that might have been a wave.

When Snape’s applause had died down, the headmistress announced their newest staff member, who would be filling the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Draco barely noticed her; she was no one he recognized, just a middle-aged witch with curly brown hair and dark robes. His attention was drawn instead to the whispers and mutters that had begun around the table:

“_Can you believe one of them decided to show up_?”

“_Whose idea was it to invite him here_?”

“_Maybe he snuck in…it wouldn’t surprise me…_”

“_Is that one of the Malfoys_?”

“_I heard his father’s rotting away in Azkaban._”

“_Good…that’s where he should be too…_”

Draco felt his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. The whispers continued throughout the feast, penetrating the air around him and filling his ears so that he could hear nothing else.

“Mal-Draco?”

Draco looked up from his plate, looking for the person who had addressed him.

Hermione Granger was looking at him with concern in her dark brown eyes, her brows knit together and a frown on her face.

Draco had at least four sharp retorts ready, but he was too tired of it all to care.

“Are you alright?”

_Are you alright_…she wanted to know about his well-being, and in a way that said she _cared_? He was Draco Malfoy. He was a Slytherin, from a family of proud Death-Eaters. He had called her a _mudblood_, several times, with increasing venom. He had stood by while his aunt had tortured her, had locked up her friends, had tried to kill all three of them. She’d almost died because of him in the Room of Requirement, and in the last battle in the castle. And she was concerned about him.

“I…yeah,” he murmured, slightly breathless all of a sudden. “I’m fine…”

“You’ve hardly touched your food,” she noted. “You should at least have something…”

More to please her than because he was hungry anymore, Draco speared a chunk of roasted potato on his fork and began to eat slowly. Hermione, seeming satisfied, sat back in her seat. “How was your summer?” she asked cautiously.

She was still talking to him? “It was…it was fine…” he tried, but she’d heard it in his voice. Before he realized what was going on, her hand was over his, squeezing very gently. Draco stared, as well as several other people at the table.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” she said quietly, so that only she, Potter and Weasley could hear. “But you don’t have to pretend that you’re fine, either. I know it can’t have been easy.”

Her hand was short and wide, her fingers just slightly roughened and dried from all the time spent in books. It was a comforting weight, but it made Draco want to crawl under the table and vanish, ashamed of himself for accepting this after all the whispering and dark looks. He cleared his throat.

“Yes, well…” he tried in his usual drawling voice. “Nothing I couldn’t handle, I assure you…”

Hermione’s eyes glittered with an almost angry light, and Draco was briefly reminded of an incident in their third year, when Draco’s arrogance and Hermione’s patience had finally caused the cataclysm that a flobberworm could have seen coming, and she had smacked him so hard he could still hear his ears ringing at times. She opened her mouth to argue, but before she could say anything, McGonagall stood and the hall fell silent.

As soon as the headmistress began to speak, Draco heard the muttering start again. He tried to ignore them and pay attention instead to the start-of-term announcements, but the angry hissing kept finding its way into the conversation.

“Before I dismiss you, I want to take a moment to acknowledge what we’ve all been through as a result of the last year.” She paused, and the entire hall offered a moment of quiet respect to the people who had been lost. Several dark, angry eyes turned towards Draco, and he bowed his head, accepting the shame that came with knowing the part he had played in each of their losses.

A hand gripped his arm encouragingly. Draco raised his eyes and found a pair of vivid green ones looking back. Potter gave his arm a very slight shake, and then patted it once before turning his eyes back to the headmistress.

“I know that each of us has lost family and friends that we will miss very much,” she went on after the moment of silence had passed. “But I want to make a few things very clear; the first is that while we have no intention of erasing the memory of the sacrifices made in these halls last May, we will neither allow the legacy of Hogwarts school to be one of pain and fear. Hogwarts was, is, and always will be first and foremost a school, a place of learning and education, where our future generations can learn to use their abilities to make our world a much better place than it was before.”

This part of the speech was met with several cheers of assent. The headmistress nodded and waved her hands for quiet again.

“The second thing I wish to make clear is this: each of you is sitting in this hall because you were invited to attend our school, because your potential to help us improve the world in which we live was recognized. Every student in this school, in every year, in every house, was invited here to learn with the promise of safety.” Her eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table, and then to the Ambrosius table. There was a tense, confused sort of silence.

“I expect each and every one of you to act with the kindness, compassion and civility that comes with sharing this castle with your fellow students,” she continued. “It has never been the policy of this school that we must all be friends with everyone else inside its walls…”

“_Lucky for that_,” someone whispered, “_if I had to be friends with the likes of a Death Eater, I’d be on the train home…_”

“…However, it _is_ the policy of this school that we treat everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, with civility at the very least.”

Draco thought back to some of the stories that Professor Snape had told him of what Hogwarts was like during his childhood, during those moments when Snape had tried to comfort him inside the prison his home had become, and he had to make an effort not to snort at McGonagall’s comment; if that had always been their policy, then he personally felt their enforcement needed a lot of work.

“House prefects, if you’ll please lead the first years to their dormitories,” McGonagall instructed, her voice now crisp and business-like. “As for the Ambrosius house, if you’ll follow me, I will show you to your new dormitory.”

Ambrosius’ common room was the South Tower, behind a suit of armor standing against the wall, which leapt aside at the mention of the password, “Merlin.” It was a large and circular room, decorated in purple and copper. Two fireplaces were situated at each end of the room, fires already alight and radiating a pleasant warmth. Large, cushy, comfortable armchairs and couches were spread throughout the room, with tables here and there for books and things. A large spiral staircase led upstairs, presumably to their bedrooms.

“Because there are so few of you, we’ve settled the sleeping situation a bit differently,” McGonagall explained. “You have each been partnered with one other student, with whom you shall share a room.” She began passing out slips of parchment. “Your roommate has been chosen at random, so if you have a problem, now is the time to bring it to my attention.”

The students formed a line in front of their headmistress, requesting changes, and as long as both prospective roommates agreed, she would tap the piece of parchment with her wand, changing the record of who was to bunk with who.

Draco looked down at his, and his stomach dropped.

_Harry Potter_

“Is there anyone else who would like to make a change?” McGonagall asked, and Draco readied himself. Perhaps she would let him have a room all to himself, so he would offend no one…

But Potter said nothing. He half-glanced Draco’s way, as if to ask for reassurance, but he said nothing.

“Very well. I’ll leave you all to settle in.” Her eyes grew rather bright and she sniffed slightly. “I’m sorry that you were all cheated out of a final year with your houses, and I’m sorry that you were cheated out of more time with the friends you’ve lost. I can only hope that this year will be good for each of you, and a new beginning for those of you that need it.” She opened her mouth as if there were more she wanted to say, but she only coughed, gave a final nod, and left the room.

“I’ve waited long enough,” someone blurted the instant the wall had closed, and the next thing Draco knew he was nose-to-nose with a tall, angry-looking someone with rough face and sandy-brown hair. “What is this git doing in our school?” he asked, looking at Draco but speaking as though he weren’t able to understand.

“I…” Draco started, but he found himself at a loss for words for once in his life. He was already very nervous, already very isolated, and now he was very close to this very angry classmate in front of a lot of other people he knew disliked him very much. He’d never been in this position where he was actually expected to offer a defense for himself, and in the sudden pressure of the situation his mind for the first time failed to return anything to say that would have made sense.

“Are you going to speak?” his housemate asked, “or did You-Know-Who curse out your tongue when he gave you his mark?”

“Shove off,” someone snarled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Git.”

It was Weasley?

“I asked you a question,” the stranger asked, ignoring Weasley’s shot.

Draco gulped.

THUD.

Draco found himself on the floor, his head ringing and stars dancing in front of his eyes. In his mind, however, he was no longer inside the walls of his school…

_How did the boy know who Dobby was, Draco?_

_I don’t know…maybe the stupid elf found him himself? It’s not like we don’t talk about Potter…_

_Yes, but why would our house-elf think so well of a boy that our family dislikes?_

_Draco hadn’t been as good at lying back then…_

_You sent the elf to help him figure it out, didn’t you?_

_No! No, I-I wouldn’t!_

_The sound of the snake-headed walking stick being lifted from its peg._

_It seems we shall have to have another discussion about proper allegiance to your bloodline…_

_Draco hadn’t been as good at masking his fear back then, either. He turned and ran, but a muttered curse and his feet were pulled out from under him, sending him crashing face-first into the floor as the snake’s head landed forcefully between his shoulder blades and he screamed…_

“_Manusad Facium_!”

Someone’s hand touched Draco exactly where the walking stick hand landed, and he flinched. Furious with himself for betraying this weakness, he stayed still, his face pressed to the dark purple of the rug, forcing his eyes to stay open and focus on the curving, coppery pattern of the rug’s edge. He could hear the voices of the others around him, and from what he could gather, Hermione had stuck his attacker’s hand to his own face, exactly where he’d struck Draco. There was some hazy arguing, some murmured words of calm from the stranger’s friends, and then a quick counter-curse and the students began to file into their rooms.

“Are you alright?”

Draco stayed perfectly still, perfectly silent.

“Draco?” The hand removed itself from his shoulder, and still he remained as he was.

“D’you think he’s been knocked out?”

Hermione’s face appeared in his line of vision.

“His eyes are open,” she observed, her own wide and anxious. “Draco?” she knelt beside him but did not touch him.

Draco feigned a start and forced himself to meet her eyes.

_You feel nothing,_ he reminded himself, _it doesn’t hurt. There isn’t any pain. You don’t feel any pain._

Hermione froze, looking slightly taken aback and Draco knew then that he’d overdone it, falling back into step with another person who enjoyed staring contests when Draco was down and helpless…

“Sorry,” he muttered, pushing himself up until he was kneeling on the floor.

“Are you alright?” she repeated.

Draco looked around. He, Hermione, and Potter and Weasley were the only ones left in the common room. Judging from where everyone was standing, it had been Potter who’d touched him.

“Fine,” he answered, “just a bit stunned, that’s all.” He rubbed his temple where the fist had landed. “Can’t say I shouldn’t have expected it…” he muttered to himself.

“Stop that,” Hermione scolded.

Draco looked up at her, his eyebrows arched. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, and he was pleased to hear a bit of his cold drawl returning. Fucking _finally_.

“You shouldn’t have expected it. You did not earn any of those remarks that we overheard at dinner. You deserve a second chance just as much as any of us, or Professor McGonagall wouldn’t have invited you to come back.”

Draco stood up, and managed to fix Hermione with a stare that, judging by her expression, had at least a ghost of its old glare.

“Granger,” he said in his frostiest tone, “you may be one of the biggest brains in this school, but trust me when I say that neither you nor McGonagall know _anything_ about what I deserve.” He turned on his heel, pretending it didn’t send a sharp pain through his eyes, and marched into the room designated for him.


	2. The Boy Who...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so from this point on, you are going to see direct quoting from the book. This is just because I didn't see a need to re-write what J.K. Rowling already did. That being said, they are direct quotes and any of Harry's flashbacks are Rowling's work, not mine.

Harry watched Malfoy leave, wishing he could do something, or say something, or anything but sit there silent and still as a damn statue. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the words to come. Anything he might say sounded flat and ingenuine, and he didn’t want to be that.

“Hermione, maybe it’s for the best,” Ron said gently, a hand squeezing her shoulder briefly. “I’m not saying he hasn’t changed somewhat, but he still bloody nearly got us all killed. He’s still a bit of a two-faced bastard.”

Hermione fixed Ron with such an intense glare that he cowed.

“It is _not_ for the best,” she snapped, her voice so stony that both Harry and Ron flinched. “You can be so thick sometimes, Ronald.” And, like Draco, she spun on her heel and stormed off to her bed.

“Bloody insane, the pair of them,” Ron said, shaking his head. “I’m off to bed, too, I s’pose,” he stretched and stifled a yawn. “I’m bunking with Seamus, by the way.”

Harry felt his brows knit together.

“I know, right?” Ron said, grinning at Harry’s confusion. “You would’ve thought he and Dean would want to bunk together. Dunno what happened, but apparently they decided it was better for their relationship that they not do that just yet.” He grimaced. “I bet the first Hogsmeade weekend we have he’ll ask me to bunk with Neville instead. Just you wait.”

Harry was glad Ron laughed too; it made his own sound less forced.

“Who’re you with?”

Harry pointed to the dormitory where Draco had entered a few moments ago.

Ron snorted. “Good luck, mate,” he said, and with a final nod he too left the room.

Harry hesitated. He wanted to go to sleep, too. After all, he was very tired. It had been a long day, and the events of the train compartment had only made it seem longer, especially when added with McGonagall going out of her way to mention the war so frequently in such a short time. The thing was, he knew he wouldn’t sleep.

Harry hadn’t slept properly since the night of the final battle. Too many things had happened, too many horrors in the last year, and too many loose ends left with the death of Voldemort that everyone insisted he be there for, and too many memories created for him to be able to sleep through the night without waking several times, always drenched in cold sweat, always gasping, always looking around for the high, cold, cruel laugh, the scarlet eyes, the chalk-white face, the snake-like nose…

Harry shook himself violently. He couldn’t think that way, or he would _definitely _see Voldemort again tonight, and he didn’t want that, not the night before he started school again.

At first, Harry hadn’t wanted to return to school. Indeed, he would have been happy if he’d never had to set foot inside the school again after everything that had happened because of him, but Hermione had insisted, reasoning that he needed to be able to put the past behind him, and that this began with facing the bad memories, not by running from them, and that if it was no longer his ambition to become an Auror, he needed training, and no one was likely to accept a student who hadn’t even finished Hogwarts, even if it was the Boy Who Lived.

But was he that anymore? He didn’t feel much like a Boy Who Lived. A Boy Who Started a War, maybe. A Boy Who Lived Because Everyone Else Died, certainly. He curled up, wrapping his arms around his knees. So many people were gone because of him. His parents; Mr. Crouch; Cedric; Sirius; Dumbledore; Hedwig; Mad-Eye; Minister Scrimgeour; Ted Tonks; Peter Pettigrew, whose death still left Harry feeling nothing but guilt and confusion, whatever he had been in life; Dobby; Fred; Lavender; Remus; Tonks; Colin…Harry knew there were more deaths on his hands than this, but the truth was he didn’t know how many people Voldemort had slaughtered in his efforts to get to Harry.

And then to have everyone praising him, calling him a hero for listening to a stupid story. It hadn’t been any special magical talent that had declared Harry the victor in that last fight with Voldemort. No, it had been a miscalculation on Voldemort’s part, nothing more. If he’d used any other wand, Harry would be dead, and all would have been lost.

And yet as much as he hated this misplaced credit, what he hated even more was the duties that apparently had come with it. So what if he’d been up all night fighting his nightmares? That didn’t matter to anyone, he was still expected to receive the news reporters politely. He was still expected to be “happy” to see them. He was supposed to understand that he was now a zoo attraction, that he wasn’t supposed to mind that everyone wanted to see him, to poke their fingers in his cage and ogle him at their leisure. He was expected to give every last explicit detail on what he went through during the war, where he’d been and what he’d done and who he’d found and how that had helped him and how he’d known all along that he would win… they bled him dry for a month without mercy. Hermione, Ron, and even Dudley had written letters upon letters of encouragement, visiting when they could and occasionally helping to drive off an over-enthusiastic reporter, but it hadn’t been enough to fight the exhaustion that always came with reliving the worst parts of his last year for every stranger that knocked on his door.

And then the trials had started. And what did it matter to them if Harry was still experiencing flashbacks of those nights when he had come face-to-face with these people, still experiencing panic attacks at the thought that he would have to see their faces again? The answer was that it didn’t matter. Harry wasn’t the victim here; he wasn’t allowed to be. He was not allowed to have the role of someone who couldn’t handle the pressure under which he’d been placed. He was the Hero. The Chosen One. He had to shoulder it with grace and strength. He was allowed only to smile bravely and be fine. He had to attend every trial, give opinions on Death Eater’s he’d never even met before, their lives hinging on whatever he said next.

There were only two trials that Harry had actually wanted to attend, where he felt his voice would do good; Severus Snape’s and the Malfoys.

Professor Snape, despite the fact that Dumbeldore’s own phoenix had chosen to heal him of his wounds in the Shrieking Shack, despite Harry’s declarations of his true loyalties in the Great Hall that day with Voldemort, and despite how emphatically he insisted in the brutal interviews that Snape had been the one who truly orchestrated the downfall of the Dark Lord, and despite his insistence that Dumbledore had _literally_ asked him to do it, was arrested for the murder of Albus Dumbledore and for conspiring with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. That trial had ended up leading to the sacking of whoever had been appointed temporary Minister of Magic before Kingsley; by the time Snape had actually stood trial Harry’s efforts to free him had finally paid off. Harry had arrived at the Ministry to a crowd of people flooding the main hallway, holding signs that said _Free Severus Snape_ and _Snape in Azkaban=INJUSTICE!_ The overwhelming support from the public, combined with Harry’s testimony and the evidence he (with Snape’s reluctant permission) provided, it was less a trial and more of a formality that Snape had had to sit through before being told he could be released.

The Malfoy trial had been another matter entirely. Harry had tried to be as gentle as he could about the part that the Malfoy family had played in the rise of Voldemort, and had made absolutely certain to mention every good deed that Draco and his mother had committed during the war, no matter what their motive had been for doing so. But there was no saving Lucius after everything was said and done. Truthfully, Harry had had no wish to defend the older Malfoy; he seemed completely at ease with his part in the entire thing when Harry had visited him in Azkaban. Of course, knowing that Harry would be at his trial and knowing how much influence Harry’s word would carry, he was perfectly civil and even almost charming to Harry, but he knew that Harry would see through any false regret, and so he’d offered none. The only thing that seemed to trouble him about the entire thing was that he had chosen the wrong side and stayed there for too long, not because he disagreed with Voldemort’s principles but because it had gotten him nothing but another cell in Azkaban, this time for life.

Draco and his mother had been held there as well, but Harry hadn’t visited them. He didn’t want to see them in that sort of place. He didn’t want Malfoy to think that he was throwing anything back in his face, and he didn’t want to have to hear Mrs. Malfoy’s pleas for help, or her entreaties for Harry to save her son, as if Harry hadn’t already decided to do so. More than anything, he didn’t want to be reminded of the power he held over their lives, a power he hadn’t wanted, a power that he didn’t deserve to have but that he was expected to carry regardless.

When the trial finally came, Harry had been honest about his opinions. He truly believed that Draco had merely been steered down the wrong path, and that Draco saw that now. He told them about how Draco had confessed to Dumbledore that Voldemort was forcing him to join the Death Eaters or face death himself, as well as having to watch his mother and father die in front of him, and how anyone would have done what Draco did to protect their loved ones. He told them how Draco had started to lower his wand before the other Death Eaters arrived in the Astronomy Tower, and how Draco had been unwilling to kill, even with so many watching him that would of course report back to Voldemort and tell him that Draco had failed his task. He told them about how Draco had known it was him inside Malfoy Manor that day, but had voluntarily said nothing, and that his hesitation had most likely saved Harry’s life, as well as Ron’s, Hermione’s, Mr. Ollivander’s, and Luna’s. He told them about how Narcissa had lied to Voldemort, pretending that Harry was dead even after she felt his heartbeat, and how that had put her own life at risk in favor of his. He told them about how her lie allowed Voldemort to lower his guard, thinking he had already won, and that Harry would not have been able to defeat Voldemort without Narcissa’s protection in that moment.

It had worked. Lucius had received a life sentence for his crimes, since there was nothing he had done to redeem himself that anyone could think of. Narcissa had been released under house arrest for one year, with the promise that the magical restrictions preventing her from leaving would be lessened gradually as she served her sentence. Draco had been released on probation, but Harry hadn’t known until today that Malfoy had been invited to finish his seventh and final year at Hogwarts.

Malfoy had always complained about how incompetent the school was, going on about all the things his father would hear about, and in general thinking he was too good for the school. He had never seemed to enjoy his time there, other than strutting around as though he owned the place. Hadn’t that been one of the things that most excited him about his mission from Voldemort, that day Harry had overheard him on the train, lifetimes ago? He’d said that he would pitch himself off the Astronomy Tower if he thought he’d have to spend another year here…that he was glad he wouldn’t be wasting his time in Charms anymore…

But he’d come back. He’d almost seemed eager to be here when they’d met on the train, and that had thrown Harry. Harry didn’t believe for a second that Malfoy had any bad intentions in coming back, but why had he looked so nervous when they’d entered the Great Hall tonight? Harry hadn’t understood it at the time, thinking it might just be cold, but then McGonagall had talked of new beginnings, of repairing damage and fresh starts…was that what Draco was trying to do? Had Malfoy really changed? Or was the sneaking suspicion rising in Harry correct, the suspicion that perhaps there had been a different side to Draco than he’d presented before.

Especially after that hit. Harry had watched Malfoy land on the floor, and as the chaos of the crowd began, he watched Malfoy tense suddenly, almost curling in on himself, and watched as he grew far too still, forcing himself to go limp, as if he were preparing for another attack, as if he expected to be hit again. Harry had recognized that reaction immediately. Harry himself had learned to react that way during the times when Uncle Vernon hadn’t been able to contain his anger to a half-ripped mustache and a purple face. Unable to speak, Harry had tried to rouse Malfoy some other way, to reassure him that everything was alright, but he had felt Malfoy tense hard beneath his hand, and he realized too late that Malfoy was likely still in the midst of whatever awful memory had come to mind with the strike, and that touching him would only have made it worse.

Lucky Hermione had been there. Lucky she had known how to handle the situation. At least she was able to be of some use, even if Malfoy had insisted that nothing was wrong.

But Hermione obviously hadn’t been satisfied with that answer. Did that mean she knew what was going on with Malfoy? Harry wouldn’t put it past her; Hermione knew _everything_. She was without a doubt one of the most observant bordering on nosy people he’d ever met, second only to himself where the nosy behavior was concerned. It was possible that between her observations and her quick mind she’d guessed what was wrong the instant Malfoy had been hit, while Harry was still sitting on the floor of the common room as the fires died around him, wondering if he was right in his theory or if he was just imagining things, so desperate to find someone who understood what he had gone through, or what he was going through.

Maybe he should go talk to Malfoy. They were roommates now, after all. Wasn’t it natural that they would share a few pleasantries before going to bed?

Harry laughed to himself. He doubted asking Malfoy if he’d ever been hit before would count as pleasantries. Besides, whatever their current standing they had been rivals for six years. That was a lot of memories of scathing retorts and smug insults to forget, on both sides of the field. Not only that, but Harry had literally almost killed Malfoy the last time he had tried to have a heart-to-heart with him, although that had been mostly Harry’s fault for rising to the bait when Malfoy had struck first. If he’d been more like Dumbledore, he would have tried to talk Malfoy down. If he’d been more like Hermione, he would have disabled Malfoy but certainly wouldn’t have resorted to a curse he didn’t know. Mostly, Hell. It was _all_ Harry’s fault, and he knew that. Would Malfoy remember that if Harry tried to talk to him again? Or would Malfoy’s mind drift to the more recent memories, of pulling him onto his broomstick to save him from the Fiendfire, of defending him in the Ministry?

_You didn’t have to defend my mum, and you didn’t have to defend me_.

Malfoy had helped him in the train compartment, when all he could see were scarlet eyes and cruel laughter…Malfoy could have done anything, but he had chosen to help…

_I won’t forget that._

Harry got slowly to his feet. Whatever this was between the two of them now, it didn’t seem to be a rivalry anymore, and Malfoy didn’t seem to hate him as much as he once did. Harry didn’t know how long that would last, but he might as well give it a shot. What was the harm in that?

He opened the door to the room cautiously. Two beds stood at either end of the chamber, and Malfoy was already in the one on the left, sitting cross-legged with his head in his hands, his pajamas already on. He looked up when he heard the door open, and immediately stood up, taking something out of his mouth as he did.

“I wasn’t sure which bed you wanted,” he said quickly, “but I thought…”

Harry shook his head. “It’s fine,” he forced out. “I can take the other one.” He gestured to Malfoy’s hand. “You smoke?”

Malfoy glanced down at the cigarette in his hand. “Yeah,” he answered, lowering himself back onto the bed. “Sever-I mean, Professor Snape used to give me some when I was…I picked it up from him.” He picked a small silver box off the bed and tossed it to Harry. “D’you want one?”

Harry caught the case automatically, his eyebrows raised. “You know what’s in those things, right?”

Malfoy smirked, with difficulty. “I know what sort of garbage they put in muggle cigarettes, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “You should know by now that I rarely indulge in any _muggle_ habit, Potter.” He lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag, exhaling the smoke deliberately towards Harry. Harry smelled, rather than smoke and stale breath, as he usually did, a pleasant, light aroma, something like cinnamon and vanilla…

“What the…?”

“These aren’t harmful,” Malfoy promised. “No toxins or anything. Trust me, though, they’re just as addictive as the muggle ones, even if they won’t give you lung cancer.”

To his surprise, Harry pulled one out of the case and tossed it back to Malfoy. The tip ignited as soon as he placed it in his mouth, and he was surprised as he inhaled to find that he tasted not vanilla and cinnamon as he had with Malfoy’s, but instead treacle and lemon cream. Malfoy leaned forward and inhaled as the smoke left Harry’s mouth.

“You have good taste,” he remarked. “It seems we both have a bit of a sweet tooth tonight.”

Harry sat down on his bed, still in his robes, and for a while they sat in silence, enjoying the sugary smell of the cigarette smoke and trying to think of something to say.

“I meant it,” Harry finally blurted, flicking the ashes of his cigarette into the crystal tray he’d conjured.

Malfoy ground the butt of his finished cigarette into his own ashtray and raised his eyebrows.

“At the trial.”

The pale, grey eyes suddenly went dark, and Harry watched as a shiver went through his new roommate.

“I meant it when I said I thought you deserved another chance.” He inhaled on the stick in his hand again. “Whatever happened between us here, we were kids then. I saw your face that night in the Astronomy Tower; I knew you didn’t want any of what you’d been given, then or after.”

Malfoy was watching the bedspread carefully, avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“I saw your face that day in the bathroom too,” he said, his voice growing steadily quieter. “I should have realized-”

“Stop.”

Malfoy was shaking suddenly, his eyes too bright.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“I am anyway,” Harry persisted. “There is no explanation for what happened that day. I shouldn’t have pulled my wand on you. I shouldn’t have fired back-”

“I might have killed you if you hadn’t-”

“-and I should never, _never_ have used a spell when I didn’t know what it did-”

“Potter-”

“I swear, if I had known, I never would have-”

“Harry, _stop this_!”

Harry stopped, his mouth open. Malfoy had gone so pale that the moonlight through the window actually made him look flushed. He was rigid on his bed, his fists clenched, his eyes screwed shut, and Harry had suddenly realized why this was not the time to have this conversation.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to make you relive it again.”

Malfoy laughed, but his laugh was cruel, sharp, and in no way amused. His eyes opened.

“That’s why you think I don’t want your apology?” he asked, his voice cold as ice and raw, more so than Harry had ever heard it before. “Fuck. That.”

“I…I don’t understand then,” Harry said, “if that’s not it, then why…?”

“Because,” Malfoy interrupted, “sometimes I’m not even angry with you for it. In fact, sometimes I’m angrier with Snape than I am with you.”

“Snape?” Harry felt his brows knit together. “He saved you.”

“Exactly.”

Malfoy held Harry’s gaze, defiantly waiting for him to object, to judge, to anything.

Harry sat there, frozen, unsure what to say and suddenly unable to move.

“It’s getting late, Potter,” Malfoy said in a clipped tone, stripped of any of the emotion it had held seconds before. “We should get some sleep, or we’ll be late for our first round of classes.” He put his ashtray on his bedside table and tugged the curtains around his bed. “Goodnight, Potter.”

Harry sat there for a few more minutes, feeling oddly like something had been dislodged inside him, something that should have been left where it was. When he was finally able to make his body move, he stood and grabbed his things to change for bed. Instead of heading to their shared bathroom, however, he knelt in front of Malfoy’s bed, whispering to the curtains.

“I’m not sorry that he saved you,” he whispered, “I’m not sorry that you came back.” He raised his hand, but thought better of pulling back the curtains and instead whispered, “Goodnight, Draco,” and then went to the bathroom to change for bed.

_The air exploded. They had been grouped together, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and Percy, the two Death Eaters at their feet, one Stunned, the other Transfigured; and in that fragment of a moment, when danger seemed temporarily at bay, the world was rent apart. Harry felt himself flying through the air, and all he could do was hold as tightly as possible to that thin stick of wood that was his one and only weapon, and shield his head in his arms: He heard the screams and yells of his companions without a hope of knowing what had happened to them­­ ---_

_And then the world resolved itself into pain and semidarkness: He was half buried in wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack. Cold air told him that the side of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on his cheek told him that he was bleeding copiously. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides, that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and he stood up, swaying, more frightened than he had been that day, more frightened, perhaps, than he had been in his life. . . ._

_And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione’s hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood._

_“No---no---no!” someone was shouting. “No! Fred! No!”_

_And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred’s eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face._

“Shhh…shhh…I’ve got you…”

Harry was suddenly being pulled carefully up from the ground, only half aware of what was going on. Part of him was struggling against the thing pulling him, the other half was staring at Fred’s body, at Percy shielding his brother’s corpse from the curses that flew overhead…

“Percy, come on, we’ve got to move!”

“It’s alright, shhh, it’s alright..”

“No…Percy…_PERCY!_”

Harry had screamed himself awake, and it took him a moment to realize why he was on the floor of his room, and when he realized that something had wrapped itself around him, he felt panic rise in his chest and he began to fight.

“No, Potter…Potter…Harry, it’s just me!”

Harry stopped. He recognized the voice. Malfoy’s hand was outstretched, holding Harry’s glasses out for him to take. He put them on, and looked around. He seemed to have fallen out of bed during the nightmare, his bedclothes tangled around his feet and trailing onto the floor. Malfoy was sitting very close. Somehow, Harry had managed to crawl onto Malfoy’s lap, and was clinging to his pajama shirt. Rather than fight or struggle, Malfoy had allowed it, wrapping his arms around Harry and cradling him almost like a baby until the nightmare had passed. Close up, Harry could see thin white scars tracing Malfoy’s chest and trailing underneath the fabric of his clothes, the scars from the fight in the bathroom.

Harry suddenly felt weak and limp all over, an awful numbness spreading throughout his body. He couldn’t even hold his head up, and he felt it drop on Malfoy’s shoulder. He closed his eyes; he was embarrassed about the dream, embarrassed that he had woken up in such a position with Malfoy of all people, and now he was falling all over his roommate even once he was coherent.

“Do you want to talk about-”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Why was Malfoy still holding him? And why did it feel so…Harry squirmed, and Malfoy seemed to understand. Carefully he stood, pulling Harry’s unwilling body with him, and the next thing Harry knew he was being lowered with extreme tenderness onto his bed, the covers pulled securely around him. Something else was suddenly pressed into his hands. Harry glanced down at it, and saw a stuffed animal; it was a bear, with silky, soft fur that was black as night. And speaking of night…the longer Harry looked, he could see the night sky on the bear’s fur, the constellations, a few misty clouds, and even a piece of the Milky Way trailing down its back.

“A gift,” Malfoy whispered, “in case you need it.” He patted Harry’s shoulder, and then left Harry to himself, crawling back into his own bed.

Harry was still staring at the bear hours later, when his mind had settled enough for sleep to claim him once more…


	3. The Past Won't Die

Draco made sure to rise before Harry the next morning, dressing quickly and quietly and making his way out to the common room in order to give Harry some space to process what had happened the night before. If he was honest, Draco wasn’t sure himself; he just knew that whatever nightmare had gotten hold of his roommate had been an awful one; he’d woken up to the sounds of screaming and the creaking of the bed beside him. When he’d pulled back the curtains, he’d seen Harry thrashing and flailing, clawing at his bedclothes, crying about something being his fault. Draco understood those dreams; he’d had plenty of them himself.

Draco wasn’t sure what had caused him to climb out of his own bed when Harry hit the floor; all he knew was that Harry obviously needed something, or someone, to help him crawl out of the dream, even if they only sat and talked him through it. Severus had done that for Draco, and it had helped. But no sooner had he sat down and began to shush Harry then he found Harry scrambling onto his lap as though his life depended on it, like he was running from some horrible monster instead of climbing onto one. The small, desperate way he’d clutched at Draco’s shirt had broken his heart to see, and Draco hadn’t realized he’d started rocking his ex-rival until Harry screamed, and then began to flail on Draco’s lap.

And then those eyes; so much pain, so much mortification, and over all of it, pure exhaustion. Draco had never seen anyone so much drained from a single nightmare. He would gladly have sat there and held Harry all night, but the squirming told him that something wasn’t sitting right with his roommate. So he had done the only thing he could; he helped Harry back into bed, and then found the charmed bear he’d been given by the man who had helped drive away his nightmares. For all Harry knew, it was just a regular teddy. Draco had thought the same, at first, but the bear had a charm to allow its holder at least a few hours of painless, dreamless sleep. It would only really take the edge off of the nightmares, but it was better than a dreamless sleep potion, which would keep all nightmares at bay but could be extremely addictive in excess. Unable to do much else, Draco had had no other choice but to go back in his own bed and listen carefully for the sound of Harry’s slow, deep breathing.

Now he sat in the common room, arranging and rearranging his books in his bag. He wanted to give Harry space, but he also didn’t want to go down to breakfast alone. He hadn’t taken the time to appreciate the furnishings last night, but in the first lights of morning, he could see the beauty in the coppery flashes from the floor and from the tassels on the chairs. The tables were nice, dark wood, and the hearths of the fires were still warm, though the embers had long since been swept away. The curtains were drawn back from the windows, allowing the peaceful morning sunshine to spill into the room, giving the whole place a quiet, almost homey feel to it. Draco breathed deeply, watching the lake sparkle through one of the windows. He was still nervous for this, especially after last night, but he couldn’t help but let the thought enter his mind that now, at last, he was home.

At least, until he heard the footsteps behind him.

Draco stood, thinking it was Harry, and turned around to greet his roommate, only to find a large, invisible hand closed tightly over his throat, blocking any air movement. He scratched and clawed at the hand, but it would not budge.

This was not the burly stranger from the night before; this one was someone that Draco recognized. Before he could react, she had flicked her wand and he was slammed hard into the window.

_Draco was slammed back first into the bookcase. Thick tomes fell from the high shelves, landing hard on his head on their way down, but he refused to black out. He couldn’t afford to._

_Stop it!_

_I will stop when the boy learns how to address his betters with respect._

_Losing a quidditch match isn’t disrespect. It’s only a game._

_I paid quite a bit of money to put you on that team. You’ve had two years to show you deserve that spot and yet what have you to show for it?_

_Draco began his mantra again. You feel nothing. There is no pain. You feel nothing._

_I asked you a question._

_Draco opened his eyes and faced his attacker._

_I have nothing to show for it._

_Exactly._

_Something large and heavy flew forward. Draco’s mother screamed._

“I could just chuck you through the window now,” Parvati reasoned as she advanced on Draco, whose was still fighting valiantly for air. “It would do everyone a favor. No one would miss you, anyway.” She was an inch from Draco now. “Do you remember Lavender?” she asked.

Draco nodded. Even if he hadn’t remembered, any other answer was likely to land him in the lake, and from this height he wouldn’t survive no matter how good a swimmer he was.

“She was my best friend,” Parvati choked, her dark eyes welling with tears. “I loved her like a sister.”

Draco nodded again, his head swimming slightly as the invisible hand continued to deprive him of oxygen.

“Do you know what happened to her, the night of the battle?” she asked, her voice quiet now.

Draco nodded.

“Say it, then.”

Draco gestured to his throat, indicating why he could not answer.

The invisible hand tightened. “Say it.”

Darkness creeping in at the corners of his vision, Draco rasped. “Fenrir.”

Parvati’s eyes flashed. The hand suddenly removed itself from Draco’s throat, and he collapsed onto his knees on the floor, retching and gasping.

“And you did that,” she said coldly, “you let them in. You let them kill Dumbledore. You let him take over the school. You sided with them in the fight. Her death is _your_ fault, just as much as it is that monster’s.”

“I’m…sorry…” Draco coughed hoarsely.

Parvati’s foot shot out, landing squarely in Draco’s chest, knocking him back into the wall.

“No, you’re not,” she spat. “If you were, if you had any decency, you’d have stayed away from this place. You don’t belong. You’re as much a monster as they were.” With that, she turned and marched through the stretch of wall where the suit of armor stood guard, leaving Draco alone once again.

Draco blinked the pinpricks out of his eyes, rubbing his throat protectively. His head, still sore from the night before, was now throbbing painfully again, but instead of his eyes or his temples, it was all over. The pleasant sunshine was suddenly too bright, and the flashes from the coppery threads only aggravated the stabbing pains.

He couldn’t sit there forever, or he’d be discovered. He didn’t want to stay in the common room anymore, for fear that someone else would decide to take vengeance. He stood, swayed and had to catch himself on the arm of the nearest sofa. He looked down at his left hand, and on a whim clenched his fist. Yes, the marks were still there.

_Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Malfoy?_

_No, Professor Umbridge._

_You’re here to answer for your actions regarding the escape of Mr. Potter’s friends when we caught them in my office last month._

_The table was already set, the quill poised and ready. Draco fixed Umbridge with a cold but respectful stare. He couldn’t afford open contempt just yet._

_With all due respect, Professor, it was not entirely my fault._

_Umbridge smiled._

_It is, though. You see, I have spoken with the other members of the Inquisitorial Squad, and they seem to be under the impression that you deliberately allowed Mr. Potter’s friends to escape?_

_Draco fought the urge to swallow hard, and he folded his arms behind his back so that she wouldn’t see them shaking._

_Why would they think that, Mr. Malfoy?_

_Because Crabbe is an idiot, and Goyle needs to be reminded to blink?_

_Her awful smile was growing wider._

_Your father and I have had many interesting conversations lately, young man. It appears that you have some disturbing ideas on what sort of behavior and ideals are and aren’t appropriate._

_Chains suddenly sprang up, locking around Draco’s arms and legs and pulling him into the chair across from her. They kept him bound tightly, all but his left arm, which was rising of its own accord, reaching for the quill no matter how Draco fought._

_With your father’s permission, you will need to be writing some lines for me. I want you to write ‘I must not lose my way.’_

_Twenty-four hours. She had not allowed him to move, to eat, to drink. He hadn’t even been allowed to use the bathroom, though she had certainly taken the time to do all of this and even to sleep the entire night peacefully, waking up to a determined Draco, biting his lip to keep from shouting and trying to will his hand not to shake. When the chains finally released him, his left hand was a puddle of red. His limbs were sore and his body ached. He didn’t remember her leaving, nor did he remember falling from his chair. The last thing he would remember before being hauled to his feet an hour later by a very angry Lucius were the wide, almost ecstatic smile on the witch’s face and the stack of papers an inch thick on the table, all written in Draco’s own blood._

“_I must not lose my way_,” he murmured, reading the scars on his hand.

A door to his right creaked, and Draco turned in time to see Harry emerging, looking strained and tired but otherwise no worse for wear. He flushed when he saw Draco, one hand running nervously through his mess of black hair.

“Erm…morning,” he offered.

“Morning,” Draco answered, cursing his voice, which was still far too hoarse from his encounter with Parvati.

Harry noticed.

“What’s wrong?”

Draco shook his head. “Nothing; ready for breakfast?”

The dark mutters and whispers followed Draco into the Great Hall and throughout his meager breakfast of toast and jam. He tried to eat, mainly because Hermione was scrutinizing him all during their meal, but he just couldn’t find his appetite. The face of Lavender Brown kept floating through his head, reminding him of the truth of Parvati’s words, of how much blood was on Draco’s hands, even if he hadn’t ever directly killed anyone.

“Potions first,” Weasley said as they finished their breakfast, taking the schedule that Professor McGonagall offered each of them. “Ready to go?”

Draco polished off the last of his orange juice, nodded, and followed Harry and the others back out of the Great Hall.

And then he heard it.

“I’LL GET YOU!”

Draco turned, expecting to find another angry classmate, but it was not he who was the target of the wrath this time. He shoved Harry hard, pushing him out of the way.

The teachers all jumped into action as the Great Hall burst into chaos. The students, thankfully, remained in their seats as Professors Sprout and Sinstra fought to restrain a Slytherin fourth-year, his wand forced out of his hand, his eyes burning and almost foaming at the mouth as he fought to get to Harry.

“MY MOTHER’S LOCKED IN AZKABAN THANKS TO YOU!” He shouted, kicking and flailing wildly. “I’LL GET YOU, POTTER!”

“If Potter sent your mum to Azkaban she deserves to rot in there with the others!” A Gryffindor third-year shouted, to tumultuous applause.

“YOU-KNOW-WHO SHOULD HAVE FINISHED YOU OFF IN THE MINSTIRY!” The hysterical boy shouted.

BANG.

The Hall fell silent (except for the teachers now dragging Harry’s attacker out, their wands now out and forcing him to stay still), and Professor McGonagall, her wand still smoking slightly from the firecracker she’d loosed, cleared her throat.

“As I told you last night,” she said in a clear, calm voice. “We needn’t be friends with each other. I understand that sometimes old prejudices are too hard to bury, especially when the pain from those prejudices is still fresh. But I will tolerate no aggression from anyone with regards to the fates of those involved in the war. This is a school, not a battle ground. You are here to learn, not to avenge any perceived wrongs. This is your final warning. Anyone caught involved in such actions will be sent directly to me, and will likely face expulsion. Now, off to your classes, or you’ll all be late.”

“C’mon, we’d better get going,” Hermione offered. She reached out to usher Harry along, but Draco’s hand flew out to stop her, ignoring the sear of pain that ran up him at the motion.

Something was wrong. Harry’s eyes had widened, his pupils contracting again. He was shaking slightly, staring after his would-be attacker.

“Harry?” Draco asked cautiously.

Harry didn’t seem to hear. He stumbled backward, and without warning he bolted, flying up the marble staircase and out of sight.

“Harry!”

Weasley and Hermione moved to follow, but before they could something very tall and black flashed past them, sprinting in the direction Harry had run. Draco put out his good hand.

“Let Professor Snape handle this,” he offered. “Trust me; he knows what to do.”

Hermione opened her mouth to object, but Weasley cut across her.

“Malfoy, your arm!”

Draco shook his sleeve down to hide the marks, but Hermione grabbed them and yanked them back up, ignoring how Draco winced in pain.

“Stinging Jinx,” she said clinically. “We’d best get you to Madam Pomfrey; I’ve read that they can get infected very quickly.” She flipped his arm over, and her eyes popped when she saw the marks on the back of his hand. “Oh, Draco,” she breathed.

“We’ve got enough to worry about without drudging up the past, Hermione,” he said pointedly.

Weasley was staring between them as Hermione watched him with a calculating look.

“I suppose it’s lucky it was only a Stinging Jinx,” he said casually, pulling his arm back. “If it was Harry he was after, he might have used much worse.”

“That’s true, but I’d still feel better if-”

“Please, Hermione, do not make this more than it needs to be.”

But Merlin above, she was stubborn. She crossed her arms and fixed Draco with a hard sort of stare, the kind a mother might give her child when they refused to take their medicine. Draco sighed and shook his head.

“I will watch it. If it starts to hurt worse, I will go to the hospital wing. Satisfied?”

Hermione still looked like she wanted to protest, but she nodded and allowed the three of them to continue towards the dungeons for their first class. The three of them stood silent, too awkward still in whatever this was between them to make conversation, and too busy turning their heads around every now and then to see if Harry had come back yet.


	4. The Bravest Man

_Only one pair was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix’s jet of red light: he was laughing at her._

_“Come on, you can do better than that!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room._

_The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest._

_The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock._

_Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais._

_It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch._

_Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather’s wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place._

_Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange’s triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing – Sirius had only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second..._

_But Sirius did not reappear._

_“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled. “SIRIUS!”_

_He had reached the floor, his breath coming in searing gasps._

_Sirius must be just behind the curtain, he, Harry, would pull him back out..._

_But as he reached the ground and sprinted towards the dais, Lupin grabbed Harry around the chest, holding him back._

_“There’s nothing you can do, Harry –”_

_“Get him, save him, he’s only just gone through!”_

_“– it’s too late, Harry.”_

_“We can still reach him –” Harry struggled hard and viciously, but Lupin would not let go ..._

_“There’s nothing you can do, Harry ... nothing ... he’s gone.”_

_“He hasn’t gone!” Harry yelled._

_He did not believe it; he would not believe it; still he fought Lupin with every bit of strength he had. Lupin did not understand; people hid behind that curtain; Harry had heard them whispering the first time he had entered the room. Sirius was hiding, simply lurking out of sight –_

_“SIRIUS!” he bellowed. “SIRIUS!”_

_“He can’t come back, Harry,” said Lupin, his voice breaking as he struggled to contain Harry. “He can’t come back, because he’s d––”_

_“HE – IS – NOT – DEAD!” roared Harry. “SIRIUS!”_

“Sirius Black is gone, Mr. Potter,” a silky, soft voice said. “He is gone, and we cannot change that no matter how much you might wish for it.”

Harry opened his eyes. He couldn’t breathe, and his face and hands were beginning to go numb. Someone was kneeling on the floor in front of him, staring at him with cold, dark eyes, his black hair falling lankly around his face, his hands reaching slowly towards Harry.

“…You…?” he choked.

“Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Potter,” Snape cut in smoothly, ignoring Harry’s question. “You are not in the Ministry. You are at school. You are safe.”

Harry’s brain worked sluggishly, trying to process information and answer back while still trying desperately to persuade his lungs to work. “Not…me…”

“You are the only person you need to worry about at the moment,” Snape said, almost icily. “Black is dead, and you cannot change it by putting yourself through this.”  


“Easy…for you…” Harry gasped, feeling himself rocking back and forth. “You…you never… cared…”

Snape’s cold hand picked Harry’s face up by the chin, forcing their eyes to meet.

“I do not give a damn about your godfather,” he said in a sterile, clipped voice, “I never did, and I still don’t. But I don’t have to care about him to care about you.” He put his hands on Harry’s shoulders. “Now, try to calm yourself. Breathe in as slowly as you can, and breathe out as slowly as you can. Try to count to four on each inhale and exhale.”

Still shaking, Harry tried. In, one, two, three, four. Out, one, two, three, four. In, one, two, three, four. Out, one, two, three, four. He closed his eyes, counting breaths, and after a few moments he could feel his heart slow, his shaking stop, and he was able to think clearly once more.

“Thank you,” Harry said, feeling suddenly awkward.

“That student had no right to speak to you so,” Snape said, as though Harry hadn’t spoken. “Please try to remember that whatever she was, in his eyes she was still his mother, and he is still thirteen, and he misses her.”

“I don’t even know who he is…or who his mother was,” Harry mumbled, staring at his shoes with his arms around his knees. “There were so many of them that I’d never even met before. I don’t know if I really did say anything to get her sent away or if…”  


“You have done only the best that you could, and no one can lay blame on you for that.”

Harry looked up again, somewhat surprised by the sudden change in his Potions master. “I… thank you, sir,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.

Snape nodded silently, and then, to Harry’s continued surprise, sat against the wall beside him, his legs crossed and his hands sitting quietly in his lap, offering comfort without speaking or touching, but just by being present, by acting as though he were in no rush to get Harry moving, even though Harry knew they were supposed to have been in Potions five minutes ago.

“I didn’t mean that,” Harry suddenly blurted, and then forced himself to slow down at Snape’s turned head and slightly raised eyebrow. “I mean, I meant it, but not as an insult. I know why you didn’t care about him, or Lupin, or…” Harry swallowed, “or my dad.”

Snape was still for a moment, and then nodded very slowly, turning his head away.

“I should have apologized to you when I first saw that memory,” Harry continued, “I never should have seen it in the first place, but after I had, I should have apologized to you. I’m sorry.”

Snape’s head bowed slightly, a silent acceptance of Harry’s words.

“I’m sorry for everything else, as well,” Harry murmured.

More silence.

“Do you mean to apologize for your own actions, or do you seek absolution on behalf of James Potter?”

Harry gulped.

“I shouldn’t have acted the way I did,” he admitted. “I didn’t know any of that stuff about you and my mum…and I didn’t know anything about what kind of man my dad really was. If I had known about it, I wouldn’t have…but I know that I shouldn’t have anyway…”

“Mr. Potter…Harry,” Snape interrupted. “Let me make a few things clear. The first is that you misinterpreted the memories that I gave you that night in the Shrieking Shack.” He turned and faced Harry with an easy stare. “I was not in love with Lily. I loved her, but not the way you believe me to have loved her. She was my best friend…” he swallowed, and with difficulty amended, “my only friend. I loved her the way that you love Ms. Granger. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded.

“Even if I had felt differently, the relationship between a student and a teacher should not be altered by the behaviors of those in their past. Which brings me to my next point; although I do not for a moment take back my comments that you often acted lazy, arrogant, and believed yourself to be above the rules of the school…” he grimaced, “…I will admit that you were not the only one at fault where our previous interactions are concerned. It was difficult for me to see you and not James, and that was not fair to you, however unintentional it was.”

Harry gulped. “I know I defended him more than he deserved,” Harry said in a croaky voice. “I didn’t know what he was then…”

“You defended him on the basis that he was your father, and that everyone around you described him as a courageous, brave, and in general good sort of man,” Snape said. “And James Potter _was_ a courageous, brave, and in general good sort of man to his friends and loved ones, to the people who told you his stories. That he was not to me means only that he was able to present different but equally genuine sides of himself, depending on who was with him at the time.”

“You didn’t deserve what he put you through.”

“No, I did not. But that does not mean you are required to hate him or his friends in order for our relationship to be better than it was before. I can care nothing for the deaths of those who tortured me in school and still care a great deal for the son of their ringleader.” His sallow skin adopted a sudden flushed hue, as if he was uncomfortable with even this roundabout version of the admission. “And you possess the ability to love your father and his friends for what they were to you while still understanding them to have been a good deal less noble than you were originally lead to believe. Very little if anything in this world is ever black and white, Harry. Your only fault in this situation is failing to look for the grey areas. Do you understand?”

Harry’s head felt rather heavy, but he thought he knew what Snape was trying to say. Nodding slowly, he turned his face to the floor again.

“I must go, or we will have the entirety of your new house looking for their Potions master,” Snape said lightly, standing up. “Stay here as long as you need. Come down to the classroom when you are ready.”

Harry bobbed his head again, resting his chin on his knees as his teacher strode slowly away.

When Harry entered the room, the class was busy with their assigned potion of the day, a Pepperup Potion. Silently Harry set his cauldron up next to Ron and Hermione, and to his surprise Draco was with them as well. He read the instructions on the blackboard carefully, and slowly began his own potion.

“Are you alright?” a voice muttered out of the corner of their mouth. Harry glanced sideways and found Draco watching him, though taking pains to make it look as though he wasn’t.

“Fine,” Harry answered, grinding fire seeds and lavender root in his mortar and pestle.

“As a warning,” Draco said quietly, bending low to pick up his vial of salamander blood so that he wouldn’t be heard. “Hermione is itching to boss someone around today. She’s already tried sending me to the nurse, and she’s likely to do the same to you.”

Harry half-glanced to his other side, where Hermione was staring at him with her usual I’m-going-to-figure-out-what’s-wrong-with-you look.

“Thanks for the head’s-up,” he breathed gratefully, and then he frowned. “Wait, why did she try to send you to the nurse?”

Draco didn’t answer right away, making a chore of measuring another ingredient. “Nothing terribly important,” he finally said casually.

Harry almost believed him, until he saw Draco wince out of the corner of his eye as he stirred his cauldron with his left hand. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it quickly. He knew what had caused the injury, but Draco seemed as unwilling to talk about it as Harry had been to talk the night before. He took his turn at measuring salamander blood, wondering why his own was beginning to rise in temperature. Why should he be upset with Draco for not wanting to talk to him about this? It wasn’t as though they were…but all the same, things had been different ever since they’d arrived at the school. With the sudden change in his disposition, Harry had hoped they might be on the way towards friends, and it seemed like perhaps they were. So why was Harry in such a rush to get there? Rushing a friendship that had begun as a rivalry bordering on hatred seemed like a bad idea…

Screw it.

“Thank you,” he blurted, keeping his voice low.

“For what?”

“…last night,” Harry forced out, trying to will away the flush that was creeping up his face. “I…I didn’t expect you to be so…”

“Understanding?” Draco finished, a ghost of his old smirk on his face, but this time it was gentler, happier. He nudged Harry playfully with his elbow as he reached for a bottle on the table.

“Well…yeah,” Harry admitted, grinning slightly, too.

Draco’s face fell ever so slightly, the change so small Harry might not have noticed if he hadn’t been looking. “Let us just say I’ve been in a similar situation myself,” he barely mouthed.

Harry didn’t know what made him do it, but a sudden protectiveness surged through him, and before he could stop himself his hand was over Draco’s, squeezing it in what he hoped was a comforting fashion. He heard the soft, sharp inhale as they touched, and when he looked up it was to see Draco’s silvery eyes staring wide at him, his lips still parted slightly.

And then, like suddenly waking from a dream, both of them yanked their hands away at the same time, heads bent low and concentrating on their work.

“You’re welcome,” Draco said softly. Was Harry imagining it, or was there something else in his voice this time?

The rest of potions passed uneventfully, with each student bringing Professor Snape a flask of their potion, just as they had in their O.W.L. year, before packing away their ingredients, clearing out their cauldrons, and heading off to their Charms class.

“Are you alright, Harry?” Hermione asked as soon as they had left the dungeon, making their way up the stairs.

“I’m fine,” Harry promised, and really, he did feel better after his conversation with Snape. He was still distracted over the last interaction with Draco, though, and it must have showed because Hermione frowned.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You seem really…not yourself.”

Harry laughed, and surprised even himself at how little humor there was in his voice.

“Hermione, _none_ of us are ourselves anymore,” he said.

“Harry, that’s not what I mean. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be a little…off, but you seem even more…I don’t know…”

“More upset?” Harry offered, forcing his voice to be calm. “More insane? More shaken?”

“Harry, that’s not…”

“Let’s just drop it, Hermione. I’m fine. Leave it alone.”

Hermione looked as though she desperately wanted to argue, but she merely shrugged and they continued on in silence.

“So what is it you don’t want to tell the others?” Draco asked that night as Harry emerged from the bathroom, dressed for bed. He was already sitting on his own mattress, cinnamon and dark chocolate wafting from the cigarette in his lips, holding another out to Harry.

“Nothing,” Harry persisted, taking the cigarette and inhaling the fumes of sharp firewhiskey.

Draco’s brow furrowed as he inhaled the aroma, but he didn’t offer a comment. “You’re a lousy liar, Harry,” he said, moving to sit on the bed beside him. “You don’t have to tell me, but you should tell someone, anyone.”

Harry sighed, the smoke flooding from his mouth as he did. “You can’t pretend you haven’t already guessed it,” he muttered.

“That you get flashbacks? No I knew that,” Draco agreed, puffing on his cigarette. “I meant whatever else it is that’s going on with you.”

“Who says I have anything going on?”

“Harry, you keep forgetting I’ve known you for seven years.” Draco turned so that he was facing Harry, who was trying to avoid his eyes. “Look at what you went through at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Look at what you dealt with all through fifth year. You didn’t have any problems with flashbacks or panic attacks then, or at least if you did they never happened in public like this.”

“Except for those times I went off on Umbridge for no reason.”

“It wasn’t for no reason and you know it.”

“Do I?” Harry continued to smoke his cigarette without looking up, and it felt like something in him was trying to burst out, no matter how tightly he tried to pack it in.

“What if that was him talking this whole time, and not me?”

A thin-fingered, elegant hand threaded through his rounded, clumsy ones, but this time Harry didn’t question it. It felt strange, almost unnatural, but it was too comforting for him to let go.

“What makes you think it was him?” Draco asked quietly.

The exhaustion of the day must be getting to Harry. His head drooped and landed on Draco’s shoulder again.

“Part of his soul lived inside me,” Harry said in a hollow voice. “The only time I was ever free of him was before I can even remember. How do I know anything of who I am is really me, that it wasn’t just…that I’m not just a jar for his personality?”

“You don’t know, not until you start trying to live again. Just be what feels natural, and we’ll face the consequences of that when we need to.”

“It sounds easier than it is.”

Draco didn’t contradict him. He didn’t act scared or horrified or even disbelieving. All he did was nod his head and say, “I understand,” in a quiet voice, his left arm twitching slightly.

Harry didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting to the place where they both knew his Dark Mark still lay.

“He didn’t live inside me the way he did you,” Draco said, breaking the temporary silence. “But he never left my side, either. Not since…” his left arm twitched again. “He’s been gone for five months now, and it still feels like he’s watching me, like I’m still _his_.”

“Draco, I can’t believe you wanted any of what happened-”

“That’s no excuse.” Draco pulled away, crossing back to his bed and putting out his cigarette butt in his ashtray. “And I did want it, at first. I wanted to take the mark. I wanted to make up for what Lucius had done-”

“Lucius?” Harry repeated. He’d never heard Draco address his father by his first name before.

Draco made a face. “My _father_,” he spat. “I thought my family’s honor was at stake and I wanted to fix it. When I realized what I was actually meant to do…and then when I realized I wasn’t meant to be the redemption but the sac…” his voice broke, shaking himself into silence. “I could have asked for help. I could even have gone straight to Dumbledore, but I didn’t. I still kept trying.”

“Dumbledore called your attempts feeble… ‘so feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has been really in it…’”

“It doesn’t matter what he called it!” Draco snapped suddenly, but he softened when he saw Harry jump. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, his voice calmer. “I still tried. And then when you approached me that day, I could have said something to you.”

“Draco, I-”

“Don’t pretend I couldn’t.” Draco was still on his bed, but he had an I-know-what-I’m-talking-about look on his face. “You’re too noble for your own good sometimes. If I had told you what was happening and asked for help, you would have given it to me. You would have taken me to Dumbledore, and curse you if you wouldn’t have had the decency to pretend for my sake that everything was normal between us.”

They were quiet for a long time. “So because you were scared, and reacted like a scared kid, you deserved what happened?”

The strangest thing crossed Draco’s face at Harry’s words. Was it fear? Anger? His brow furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down, but his eyes grew distant, like he was seeing into something Harry couldn’t find…like he was looking back into his own memories.

“I don’t know if I deserved it or not,” he admitted. “But I do know that no matter what, it’s never going to be enough for them, and I can’t find a way to disagree.” He bowed his head.

Harry had crossed the room and already had his arms around Draco before either of them knew what was happening. He felt Draco’s arms lock up, felt him freeze, and then felt him suddenly give in, wrapping his arms tightly around Harry, burying his face in the crook of Harry’s neck and clinging to him tightly.

“You’re too much like Hagrid,” his voice came out, muffled slightly against Harry.

“How so?”

Draco pulled away, lifting his head but keeping his eyes turned away. “You have an odd ability to see the good in otherwise distasteful creatures.”

Harry hesitated, and then placed a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Except Hagrid sees that even when it doesn’t exist,” he offered. “I think I’m a good deal more oblivious than that.”

Draco snorted. “True,” he admitted softly.

Neither of them was sure what broke the moment, but at some point Draco shifted uncomfortably and mumbled that they should be getting some sleep before class the next day. Just before Harry pulled the curtains shut around his four-poster, he heard Draco’s hesitant, “Goodnight…Harry.”

“Goodnight, Draco,” he answered, unsure whether he should be smiling or not but unable to wipe it off his face.


	5. Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There may be some triggers from here on out. If violence, discussions of trauma or suicide are triggering to you, please please please be VERY careful! I'm not trying to be an asshole by putting them in here, I was working through some of my own stuff when I wrote this but that doesn't mean y'all have to be triggered in the process.

As the days passed, Draco found the insults and the whispers plateauing. It wasn’t as though they ever stopped, and it was rare that he had a single day where he didn’t find a note in his bag about how he deserved to die or how he was leftover trash from the Dark Lord, but the thing about constant harassment was that after a while, it became Draco’s new normal, and it stopped bothering him as much. He had gone from feeling completely derailed by a few comments about how he belonged with his father in Azkaban to feeling only mildly depressed when he received a letter during the morning post that suggested he jump off of the Astronomy tower. As if he hadn’t already tried, the idiots.

Besides, now he had Harry. Whatever sort of strange friendship this was between them, Draco was grateful for it while it was appearing to last. Harry didn’t know about the threatening messages, and he didn’t know how Draco occasionally ran into the wrong sort of person on his way to class and wasn’t always able to get away with only a few scathing remarks. Why would Draco tell him? It would only lead to more trouble for Harry, more unwanted attention for both of them, and more trouble for Draco in the long run. The strain would at last prove too much for Harry, and either he would leave Draco of his own accord or Ron and Hermione would persuade him to take some time apart for his own mental health. Draco didn’t want to lose the one person (or he supposed he should say three; Harry’s friendship had persuaded Ron and Hermione to come around) who seemed to be on his side, and so he stayed silent, pretending he had received no threats from strangers and pretending that the bruise on his face was a result of a stray door or a prank from Peeves he’d been unable to avoid. No, the punishments he’d been receiving for daring to come back to Hogwarts was the least of Draco’s problems.

Right now his problem was mainly the fact that he was far too quickly falling in love with Harry Potter.

Draco wasn’t sure when his feelings for Harry had changed. He knew that he had never really hated Harry, had never truly even disliked him, but their rivalry had been firmly set with his first few impertinent remarks on the train, and so there hadn’t been much he could do to remedy the situation even after he’d found out that the way his parents had raised him those first eleven years had all been lies. And so he had been content to sit at a distance and allow Harry to assume that there was hate festering between them, knowing privately that this was not the truth.

Draco had tried to stay out of Harry’s way most of their time at Hogwarts, only really interfering when embarrassment, ego or family honor required it of him. Alright, fine, he’d also interfered if he’d thought Harry’s life really was in danger, but although Dobby had helped in that matter, it had only worsened his own relationship with the Boy Who Lived, and it had come at the cost of the one friend he’d had at the time.

It had been his own fault the hippogriff had attacked him in their third year, too focused on trying to impress Harry to pay attention to Hagrid’s warning, but he knew his father would not allow such a humiliating thing to willingly come from his son’s own mouth, especially not when admitting that he had been in the wrong over an issue with a half-giant oaf like Hagrid. He hadn’t wanted to go along with the plan, but he’d really not seen that he’d had much choice in the matter. He had tried to warn them away from those Death Eaters at the World Cup, but with his father in such close proximity he couldn’t be obvious about it, and he didn’t think they’d understood that it was a warning and not a taunt. Peer pressure, admittedly, had been the driving force behind most of his behavior during the Triwizard Tournament, but if he was honest, he wouldn’t have had a choice in that situation either. What would Lucius Malfoy have said if he’d heard that his son and heir was expressing support for Harry Potter?

And then the Dark Lord had returned and Draco had seen just how quickly his greedy, power-hungry hands had been able to seize the school in his attempts to hide his return and still get to Harry. Draco had known why Umbridge was there the instant she arrived. He hadn’t needed her waffle-filled speech to know that she was there to undermine the headmaster and try to interfere at Hogwarts. He’d done his best to counteract the damage she’d done, but he was one student who was as good as under lockdown with his two “friends” in tow, and he could only do so much. When the Inquisitorial Squad had become a thing, Draco had known he’d have no choice but to join; what else was to be expected of the son of the Dark Lord’s right-hand-man? Of course he should be jumping at the chance to have even more power within the school, the chance to continue to help conceal the Dark Lord’s existence. He’d thought he’d be able to sneak some help the other way every now and then, and for the most part he could, until he grew careless, when they’d had Harry’s friends captive in the toad woman’s office. Crabbe and Goyle had seen Draco summon one of the captive’s wands to them, had realized what Draco had done, and as expected, they reported their prey to his parents.

When his father had been arrested, Draco hadn’t even allowed himself the hope that his nightmare was over. He knew that the Dark Lord would strike out against his family, that punishment was on its way…until he was approached by the Dark Lord himself, and offered a chance “to earn a place of honor in our ranks…” His attempts to side with Potter and his friends had failed, he had lost a friend in the process, and now he was facing pressure from his mother to protect the two of them, to keep what little honor was left to their name. And if he joined the Death Eaters, he would have at least some protection for when Lucius was inevitably released from Azkaban…as a Death Eater he would be the Dark Lord’s servant first and Lucius’ son second…they would be considered equals by everyone around them…Lucius wouldn’t be able to touch him ever again…

And so he had accepted the mark without even asking what his task was. It was only after there was no turning back that he was informed he was to kill a wizard that even the Dark Lord himself feared; Albus Dumbledore. Draco had spent much of his sixth year panic-driven, unable to eat or sleep, constantly on edge and jumping at any small noises he heard. His revulsion at the task that was set to him battled with his desperation to keep himself and his mother alive, and it had torn him apart. And then he could see Potter getting steadily more suspicious, coming closer to the truth of what was going on, and it scared him even more. Finally, Potter was paying attention to him and it was the one time that Draco really was up to something, the one time when Draco wasn’t trying to help him behind the scenes, the one time Draco would have given anything to just blend into the crowd, to be someone that Harry didn’t immediately recognize when they met in the corridors.

And then Harry had found him in the bathrooms. That day, when he had cried to Myrtle, Draco had found himself wishing for death, wishing that he could just drop dead, and then all of this torture would be over. And then in had stepped Harry, and for the first time in a long time, Draco found his heart leaping for joy. Here was the perfect opportunity. Harry would catch him, take him to Dumbledore, who would force the truth out, and then it would be over, come what may. He’d either go to Azkaban with his dad, who would kill him, he would be sent back to the Dark Lord, who would kill him, or he would be killed by Dumbledore. Either way, it would be over soon. He hadn’t expected Harry to hit him with Snape’s jinx, and as he’d lain there, crying tears and blood all over the floor, he’d actually almost felt relief.

Until Severus had arrived. Draco’s fading mind felt his skin knitting together, felt the blood slowly returning to his veins, and all he could think was how badly he wanted to hex Severus in that moment…

“Draco?”

Draco started and looked up from his Charms homework. Harry was staring at him, concern in his vivid green eyes.

“Everything alright?”

Draco struggled to smile and gave a small nod, trying to focus back on his work. They were alone in the common room, the only two with a free period right before dinner. It was nice, quiet and peaceful, without having to worry about who was going to sneak up on him. The rest of the student body seemed at least somewhat aware of the fact that Draco had managed to earn a small amount of favor with Harry Potter, and so when Harry was around Draco was left alone, but he could still feel the glares on the back of his head when the rest of their house was with them.

It would have been utter bliss if the day itself had gone better than it had. The notes and threats had been unusually brutal today, and then he’d run into a group of ex-Gryffindors who didn’t appreciate the presence of a Death Eater in their midst. It wasn’t just that he was a Death Eater, Draco had realized after they’d started in on him. It was that he’d been one of _them_, that he’d been a student at the school with them, grown up alongside them, only to betray them as soon as he’d been given a chance.

Between the threatening messages, the painful run-in, and his fretting over trying not to pine too obviously over someone he couldn’t have, he was nothing but a ball of sore muscles and twinging nerves, but Harry couldn’t know that. “Just having some difficulty with this passage,” he offered, staring blankly at his parchment. The words he’d already written seemed to be floating off of the page, try as he might to make them lie flat.

Harry laughed, sounding almost nervous. “You? Have trouble with Charms?” he asked.

“Yes,” Draco answered shortly, reaching up to rub his temple gently. The motion jarred his shoulder and he tried to hide his wince, but Harry had seen.

“I’ve just got a bit of a headache,” he said, standing slowly from his chair. “I’m going to lie down before dinner.”

“Wait!” Harry grabbed at Draco’s arm to stop him.

Draco had trained himself not to make sounds anymore, but damn it all if he didn’t let out a small, high-pitched whimper. He blamed the stress of the day, cracking his walls and lowering them without his realizing it.

Harry was up in an instant, his hand gone from Draco’s arm. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked quietly.

“I said I’m fine,” Draco almost snapped, pulling his arm away. “I’m just tired. I’ll see you at dinner.” And he practically ran into his room, desperate to get away before this became something he didn’t want it to be. He reached the quiet and solitude of their room, and stretched out carefully on the bed, sighing as the aches and pains began to seep slowly from his body and into the mattress…

_“Crucio!”_

_Pain such as Draco had never known jolted through his body, harsh and unrelenting. He didn’t try to keep himself from screaming as he hit the ground hard, writhing in agony. Fire was consuming his very bones. Steel hands were squeezing his head, his skull cracking beneath their fingers. Razor-sharp blades were slitting him open in stripes, creating seams in his skin as they raked down his body…_

_And then the pain stopped and Draco was on the floor, panting, curled in on himself as though that would offer him any protection from the Dark Lord’s desires._

_“Did that hurt?” The Dark Lord asked softly. The other Death Eaters laughed._

_“Yes,” Draco gasped; he knew better than to try to be defiant with this attacker._

_“You don’t want to feel that again, do you?”_

_“No.”_

_“But you know that you deserve it.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Ask me to do it again.”_

_Draco’s eyes flitted to the left, where his mother stood, sobbing and pale, and he knew what would happen if he refused, who the wand would be turned on next._

_“Forgive me, my lord,” Draco managed, his voice shaking, “I have failed you. Punish me as you see fit.”_

_“Beg.”_

_Draco swallowed. “Please, my lord,” he tried again, “absolve me of my mistakes.”_

_The curse hit him again, and Draco felt the tears streaming down his face this time. He lost track of where and who he was, blinded by pain. He could hear his mother screaming in the distance, begging for his torture to stop._

_It did. Draco gasped, looking around, not daring to believe that the Dark Lord would listen to a mother’s frightened cries; it had never stopped him before, Potter was proof of that…_

_Aunt Bella was standing next to his mother, squeezing her sister’s hand tightly, her expression carefully blank but her eyes betraying just a hint of fear and sympathy._

_“You are quite right, Narcissa,” the Dark Lord mused. “Dumbledore was Draco’s fault, but the prophecy was not. That mistake belongs to Lucius.”_

_Heavy footsteps behind him told Draco who was being summoned into the circle with him and the Dark Lord. The long white hands suddenly grabbed him by the back of his neck and hauled him upright, spinning him around to face his father. The fingers that gripped him were cold, making him shudder slightly; it was like being held by a corpse…_

_“You and your son have both failed me terribly,” the Dark Lord said quietly, but Draco was barely listening to him; his eyes were on his father. Years of training had told him to empty his eyes of anything but cold indifference when facing this man, and he saw nothing but the same reflected back at him. It didn’t bother Lucius to see his son on the floor, screaming and writhing. He didn’t care that Draco had been deliberately set up for failure as a punishment for his own failings. He cared only that it was not he who was receiving the pain._

_“Yes, my lord,” Lucius answered, bowing deeply._

_“You already know that Draco’s assignment was given to him as an opportunity to either redeem or punish you, depending on his success.”_

_“Yes, my lord.”_

_“And here your family has failed a second time.”_

_“Yes, my lord.”_

_“But worry not, Lucius. The Dark Lord is merciful. And you have until recently served me well.”_

_The Dark Lord released Draco, whose legs were shaking too badly to hold him and he fell hard on his knees._

_“You may decide, Lucius. You may receive the punishment for your family’s failures,” the Dark Lord paused, and Draco knew what was coming and what his father would choose, “or you may deliver the punishments you feel your family deserves unto your son.”_

_There was a hush as everyone but Draco waited with bated breath to see what choice Lucius would make._

_“Crucio!”_

_The pain was even worse this time. Everything blurred and danced in front of Draco’s splitting head. His throat was beginning to tear from his screams. He was aware only of the pain, as if the blood in his veins had been replaced with white-hot metal, searing him from the inside out as his mother collapsed into her sister’s arms…_

Draco woke with a start, gasping quietly as his ribs flared and his shoulders blazed. The dormitory room was dark and quiet, but he could hear the voices outside of the other Ambrosius students, laughing, discussing homework, relaxing by the fire. His stomach rumbled slightly. He sighed. Of course he’d missed dinner. Slowly, trying not to aggravate his injuries any further, Draco rose from the bed. Harry wasn’t there yet, so without thinking he started to ease his robes off his shoulders, and then carefully stripped himself of his shirt as well. He stifled a groan as he felt the muscles in his back and shoulders flex the wrong way, willing away the sharp inhale as his ribs protested the stretching of his trunk.

Behind him, someone gasped.

Draco whirled around, ignoring the pain and shrugging his shirt quickly back over his shoulders.

“Who’s there?” he called sharply, his wand out.

Harry’s head materialized from thin air, his green eyes wide and dark and his mouth open. The rest of his body slowly appeared, and Draco saw the reason for his cloak; he was carrying a plateful of sandwiches and a jug of pumpkin juice from the kitchens.

“Harry?” Draco lowered his wand in an instant and struggled to close his shirt, too aware of how exposed he was.

Harry set the plate of food on the foot of Draco’s bed, and in two steps was inside Draco’s personal space, pulling his shirt back down.

“Harry, don’t!”

“Tell me I didn’t see what I think I saw!”

“You don’t…wait, please…ah!” Draco curled in on himself as the shirt fell away.

Harry swore under his breath. He took Draco’s left hand, reading the words on the back, and he heard Harry murmur something that sounding like “cow” before his arm was turned over. The Stinging Jinx from a few weeks ago was finally beginning to fade, though there was still a pink stripe curling up his arm. Harry’s eyes widened at the place where the Dark Mark still branded him, but Draco knew it wasn’t the Mark itself that had his attention. A white scar traced his forearm from the crook of his elbow to the top of the Mark’s skull, and from the bottom of the snake’s belly down to his wrist, the tattoo itself untouched. Harry opened his mouth to ask, but his attention was taken away by the bluish-purple marks on Draco’s upper arms and shoulders, and splashing across his chest and stomach. His fingers, rounded and rather clumsy, traced the scars on his chest from their duel in the bathroom, and Draco suppressed a shudder. He didn’t like being looked at like that, like he was a wounded animal on death’s door. He tried to pull away, but it only caused him to flinch as the wrong muscles flared again, and Harry went pale as he followed the trail of injuries to Draco’s back. Draco closed his eyes and tensed, waiting for Harry’s reaction.

Harry’s fingers touched the tiny pockets in Draco’s back very lightly, silent for far too long.

“Snake fangs?” he finally asked softly.

Draco didn’t answer.

“Nagini didn’t do this to you,” Harry reasoned aloud. “Her fangs were too big…” Harry’s hand, which had been feathering over the marks in an almost soothing manner, suddenly stopped. “Draco…are these…are these from _your fa_-?”

Draco pulled away, taking two huge steps back from Harry, hugging himself and staring at the floor.

“_Don’t_,” he begged, hating himself for it, “It’s nothing. They don’t matter…_he_ doesn’t matter anymore. He’s in Azkaban, away from me and away from that damned walking stick.” Draco tried hard not to shudder again, spitting out the name of the hated object that had peppered his shoulder blades with so many pinprick scars.

Harry’s arms were suddenly around Draco again, holding him close, squeezing his shoulders in a way that aggravated his injuries and also made his eyes sting badly.

“I’m so, _so_ sorry,” Harry whispered, positively caressing Draco’s arms as he held him. “I didn’t know…”

“No one did,” Draco answered, no longer caring about how thick his voice sounded or that his limbs were shaking. “I didn’t want them to know. It wouldn’t have done any good.” He sniffed. “And I wouldn’t have told you anyway; we were supposed to hate each other, remember?”

“Yeah, but I should have recognized it. I could have reached out to you, I could have tried to help, or…”

“Harry, there was no way you could have seen it,” Draco said, somewhat impatiently. “How could you?”

Harry pulled away, and Draco noticed that his face was flushed and he was starting to undress as well. First the robe, and then his shirt.

“Because,” he said, turning slowly around, “the Dursleys hid it as well as your dad.”

It was Draco’s turn to open his mouth in surprise.

Harry’s back was striped with scars, crisscrossing from his shoulders to his hips. Unclothed, Draco could see that Harry was thin, _very_ thin, and suddenly it clicked and Draco understood why he’d always looked so dangerously underfed before…he had been.

“_Why_?” was all Draco could think to say.

Harry turned, and he and Draco were each facing the other with wide, slightly watery eyes.

“Because I was a wizard,” Harry said. “They were frightened of my magic. They thought they could…” he swallowed, “they thought they could stamp it out of me. Whenever something unusual happened, or whenever they thought I’d done magic without trying, Aunt Petunia and Dudley would clear out of the upstairs, and Uncle Vernon would take off his belt, and…and I’d have to take off my shirt, and then he’d…” he cleared his throat but didn’t seem able to continue.

Draco reached out a hand, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch Harry just yet.

“When I started at Hogwarts, it stopped, or at least for a while,” Harry said, “it really only happened after something really bad had happened, like when Dobby smashed the pudding, or when I blew up Uncle Vernon’s sister, or…”

A huge wave of guilt engulfed Draco, and despite his love for him he again cursed the elf for misunderstanding the directions he’d been given.

“No one knows about it,” Harry said urgently, “not even Ron and Hermione.”

“I won’t tell them.”

Harry nodded his thanks, changing his weight from foot to foot awkwardly. “Why…?” he started to ask, but he seemed to think better of it.

“Because I didn’t listen,” was all Draco could bring himself to say. They were forming a friendship, and they were just now comfortable enough to start sharing painful things. He didn’t need to distress Harry with the full weight of his torture stories, not when Harry already seemed so vulnerable and raw now. “We should get to bed, Harry.”

Harry looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded. “Yeah; yeah, you’re right.” He went to the bathroom, and Draco stayed out in the room, each changing into their pajamas.

“How did you get the bruises?” Harry asked when they, at last, started crawling into their beds, the plate of food on Draco’s bedside cabinet.

“Hmm?” Draco asked, pretending he was asleep so that Harry wouldn’t press.

Damn Gryffindor. “I asked you how you got the bruises. Your dad’s been in Azkaban for a while now, and we’ve been here for three weeks. You can’t tell me he gave you those as well.”

Draco sighed into his pillow. “He gave me a fair few over the years, but I’d rather not talk about the current ones, if you don’t mind.”

“Draco, if something’s wrong, I want to he-”

“Harry, I’m not in any serious danger,” Draco insisted. “Please; I’m tired. Let’s just go to sleep.” He reached up without looking and pulled his curtains closed, pretending he couldn’t see Harry’s confused, slightly frustrated face.


	6. Tell Someone

_“And here he is ... the boy you all believed had been my downfall. ...”_

_Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harry. He raised his wand._

_“Crucio!”_

_It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end ... to black out... to die ..._

_And then it was gone. He was hanging limply in the ropes binding him to the headstone of Voldemort's father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters' laughter._

_“You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me,” said Voldemort. “But I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini,” he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching._

_“Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand…”_

“No…_nooo_…”

“Harry…”

“Not again…not again…please…”

“Harry!”

Harry’s eyes snapped open, darting around the room, looking for the red eyes and the cold voice.

A warm hand was on his shoulder. Harry turned over and looked up at Draco’s blurred features.

“Are you alright?” he asked urgently, his fingers squeezing Harry’s shoulder gently.

Harry sat up slowly, reaching for his glasses and ignoring the fact that he was shivering. “Fine,” he answered.

“You don’t sound fine,” Draco pushed gently, reaching up and wiping sweat from Harry’s forehead. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Harry said firmly, pulling sharply away. “Why would I?”

Draco looked surprised. “Because it will make you feel better,” he answered.

“Well, apparently it doesn’t, or you would talk to me.”

Draco’s pale cheeks pinked. It had been a month since the last time they had tried to open up, since Draco had refused to tell him about the bruises. Harry, angry at Draco’s lack of trust in him and hurt that perhaps this friendship wasn’t working out quite the way he wanted, had kept his distance from Draco in that time, answering questions and being perfectly civil but nothing more. Far from asking him the reason for his sudden silence, Draco seemed to accept that their friendship was over as quickly as it had begun, and that had made Harry even angrier. Now the reason for the upset was heavy between them, and he waited for Draco to challenge him.

“If that’s what you want,” Draco said softly, rising from the bed.

“What is your problem?” Harry burst, shooting up from his bed. “What did I do that made you want me to leave you alone again? What did I do that was so wrong?”

Draco turned around and faced Harry with wide eyes. “Harry, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

“What is it then?” Harry took another step closer, chest-to-chest with Draco. “What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afra-”

“What about me isn’t good enough for you?”

“That’s not-”

“You think someone like you couldn’t possibly need help from someone like me?”

“Stop that!” Draco barked, his cheeks now a burning, bright red, some of his scathing drawl returning. “If you really think any of those things you’re a bigger prat than I ever gave you credit for, Potter!”

It had been a long time since they’d called each other by their last names, and the return of “Potter” stung Harry far,_ far_ worse than he’d expected it to. “I’m a prat for being angry about this?” he asked, his voice rising steadily. “For knowing that there’s something wrong and seeing that you won’t let me help? I’m a prat because you’re acting like you’re too good to let anyone help you?”

“No, you’re a prat for being insecure and for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong!” Draco shot, the drawl replaced by the desperation of his anger, spiraling out of control almost as quickly as Harry was.

“So when I ask I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but not when you ask?” Harry shook his head. “Maybe you haven’t changed as much as I thought, Malfoy.”

Malfoy’s eyes blinked furiously, and his flushed face twisted into something that was supposed to be a sneer but didn’t quite make it. “Fine,” he said, marching to the door. “Fine.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

Harry threw himself back into the bed without even taking off his glasses, fuming.

“_Come out, Harry . . . come out and play, then ... it will be quick ... it might even be painless ... I would not know... I have never died. . ._”

“Shhh…it’s alright…”

Harry opened his eyes again, and this time he felt the warm arms around him, pulling him closer, his face pressed to a silk-clad chest with thin white scars poking out from the shirt’s hemline. The slim, delicate fingers wiped a few stray droplets from under Harry’s eyes.

“I’m here…it’s alright…” Draco whispered. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have pushed. You don’t have to talk about it.”

To Harry’s very great surprise, he snuggled closer. “Thanks,” he mumbled against Draco’s chest. He knew Draco was right when he said that Harry needed to talk, but he didn’t want to admit it just yet. Part of him was still stubbornly convinced that he could handle this himself, that he didn’t need to burden anyone else who was already suffering their own after effects of Voldemort.

But as bad as these dreams and memories were becoming, it had not been nearly so bad as feeling the old anger and animosity from Draco again. This friendship of theirs hadn’t lived for very long, but it had fast become one of the most important friendships of Harry’s life. He could sense somewhere in the pit of his stomach that this was no ordinary friendship, that these feelings were similar to what he’d felt when Ginny had slipped him that love potion. But with Ginny, even before she’d admitted to drugging him, it had always felt somewhat forced, as though he were trying to fit himself into clothing that was too small, or like he’d put his shoes on the wrong feet. This, this felt like the first time he’d ever seen Cho Chang, only deeper, because he knew Draco. They were friends, they shared a room; they knew each other’s habits, their likes and dislikes, and that made this something Harry had never felt before. This time, it felt natural, more than a friendship but without the awkwardness of a crush. He didn’t want to say even to himself in case he was wrong, but it felt like…home.

He wrapped his arms around Draco’s waist, squeezing for a brief moment, but stopped almost immediately. Draco had inhaled sharply and tensed, shying unconsciously away from Harry’s touch.

“Draco?” Harry sat up.

“Please,” Draco begged. “I swear, it’s nothing…”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.” Harry lifted the hem of Draco’s shirt, ignoring the small noises of pain and Draco’s weak protests. Dark bruises covered his ribs, and someone had scratched _Death Eater_ into his stomach with a quill, not deep enough to make him bleed but deep enough to hurt, deep enough to be visible.

“Draco, wha-?” But then Harry caught sight of Draco’s face and the question died in his throat.

Draco’s left eye was nothing more than a mass of black and blue, the bruises extending all the way to his cheekbone. His nose looked like it had been recently bloodied, and there was a nasty-looking cut that ran across the bridge of his nose.

“Nothing…serious…” Draco groaned, closing his good eye and trying to pull his shirt back down.

“Please, don’t,” Harry asked, helping Draco to sit up with him. “Tell me the truth.”

Draco tried to sigh, but winced after it hit his ribs. “What did you expect?” He finally asked miserably. “I’m a Death Eater, Harry. They don’t want me here, and I can’t blame them.”

“You’re not a Death Eater,” Harry said firmly. “Not anymore.” He slid an arm gently under Draco’s arms, furious with himself for the sudden spread of warmth that ran through his body at the closeness. “C’mon; we need to get you to the hospital wing.”

Draco laughed weakly. “I doubt this is serious enough for the hospital wing,” he groaned as Harry stood, Draco’s arm slung around his shoulders. He took a few shaky steps, clamping his free hand to his ribs.

“Then let Madam Pomfrey say it.”

Draco nodded, looking weary, and his head slumped, leaning on Harry’s shoulder too.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry asked as they made their way down the steps.

“You had enough to worry about,” Draco answered, trying to avoid Harry’s eyes. “You’ve looked like hell just as much as I have, and if you weren’t going to talk to me about what was wrong with you then you didn’t need to add what was wrong with me to it.”

Harry felt a stab of guilt as he realized that Draco had taken Harry’s silence not as a challenge to learn the problem, but as a sign that he would not face the problem with him.

“I’m sorry,” Harry muttered, helping Draco avoid a trick step in the staircase. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I was angry that you wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.”

Draco nodded, his face strained and tired. “Your nightmares are getting worse,” he said, “every day I see you ducking into abandoned classrooms to wade through the flashbacks. Every night I hear you crying for your friends, but you won’t let anyone in.” He raised his head and fixed Harry with a grim stare, made even more so by his injured eye. “You can’t live like this, Harry. Trust me. It will only get worse, and eventually you won’t be able to wait them out.”

“You know this for sure?” Harry asked in a highly doubtful voice.

Draco’s eyes grew dark, and he stared into the past for a moment. “I do,” he whispered. “Harry,” he said, his voice much stronger this time. “It doesn’t have to be me that you talk to. Go to Hermione or Ron. Go to Professor Snape. Go to McGonagall. Anyone. But don’t keep this to yourself. You’re not helping anyone that way and you’re only hurting yourself more in the process.”

Harry hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly before knocking on the door to the hospital wing. “What did they do to you anyway?”

“They…they gave me a potion…” Draco began, but his words had suddenly become slurred and sluggish, and he swayed on Harry’s shoulders. “body responds…suggestions…beat…but no effort…”

“Draco?” Harry put a hand to Draco’s forehead, which was suddenly very feverish.

“…Said…I make them sick…” Draco mumbled, his head drooping even further. “Said…I deserved to know…how it felt…” he coughed weakly, cradling his stomach with the hand that wasn’t laying heavily on Harry’s shoulder, “to be…sick all the time…”

The door to the hospital wing opened, and Madam Pomfrey stared at Draco, hanging limply from Harry, still trying to speak as he faded in and out of consciousness.

“He’s been poisoned, Madam Pomfrey,” Harry said quickly, unable to think of a better explanation for what Draco was describing. “Something to make him answer to suggestions, I think was what he called it.”

Madam Pomfrey took Draco’s other arm and Harry helped her drag him into the ward as he quickly explained what Draco had managed to relay in his state.

“Did they tell you anything else, Mr. Malfoy?” she asked urgently, pulling the covers up to Draco’s shoulders and sending Harry for water with a wave of her hand.

Draco mumbled something that Harry didn’t hear, and apparently, neither did Madam Pomfrey, because as Harry returned he heard her ask him to repeat himself.

Draco groaned, his eyes fluttered shut, and almost sleepily he mumbled, “…said I deserved to die…”


	7. Draco's Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: there is a LOT of violence and some heavily suicidal discussions in this chapter. Please be careful!

“_Crucio_!”

The pain was even worse this time. Everything blurred and danced in front of Draco’s splitting head. His throat was beginning to tear from his screams. He was aware only of the pain, as if the blood in his veins had been replaced with white-hot metal, searing him from the inside out as his mother collapsed into her sister’s arms…

The next thing Draco was aware of was a cold hand on the side of his head, stroking his face gently. It was a different sort of cold than the hard stone on which he lay, and different from the corpse-like texture of the Dark Lord; this hand was a soothing cold, like a damp rag on a summer day.

“Gently,” the silky voice instructed, “do not move too fast, Draco.”

Blinded from his own weakness and the lingering pain, Draco followed the whispered instructions as best he could. He was guided easily into a sitting position, and when he could not hold himself up something strong and gentle caught him about the shoulders. He heard whispered cursing from far away, and as the figure shifted beside him, he caught the scent of rich, well-treated old leather and a strange, herb-like scent that reminded him of bitter greens.

“Seh…Sev-verus?” he breathed. Why was Severus helping him? Shouldn’t he be basking in the Dark Lord’s gratitude? Or off on another mission for his master? Anything but this…

“Shh,” Severus instructed. “Drink this.” The smooth, cold rim of a glass bottle was pressed to his lips.

“Noo…” Draco managed to croak, trying to push the bottle away. He wasn’t about to drink anything his rival offered him.

Severus tutted. “Draco, be reasonable,” he said, “I’m trying to help you.”

Draco opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a weak, hacking cough, and Draco was frightened to find blood on his hand when he pulled it away. What had his father done to him?

“Enough arguing,” Severus said firmly. “You can drink this on your own or I can force it down your throat. It is your choice.”

Draco was so weak, so tired, and everything…_everything_…hurt so much. If he was honest with himself, Draco didn’t even care anymore if he lived or died. He opened his mouth and tried to swallow some of whatever was in the bottle, part of him hoping it was poison. He didn’t even notice its taste; as long as it ended the pain, he couldn’t care less.

But it didn’t. Instead, it brought Draco’s vision back, his family’s cellar swimming wildly before him. It also made him able to think more clearly, more aware of his body, and at least ten new sorts of pains found their way into his consciousness.

“Ah…” he gasped, unable to do much else. He clutched at his ribs with his right arm, feeling his left hanging awkwardly at his side, and more tears leaked down his face, tracing well-marked paths on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Severus whispered, pulling the broken corpse to which Draco’s reluctant consciousness was chained a bit closer. “I should have protected you better than this.” To Draco’s great surprise, he felt a single tear land on his scalp. Was Severus _crying_ over him?

“My…choice…” Draco found himself struggling to speak words of comfort, unsure of what was going on but willing to allow it to happen if it gave him something else to focus on besides the endless pain.

Severus laughed. “Foolish boy,” he scolded, though there was no malice in his voice, “to think you ever had a choice.” Draco was eased back onto remarkably warm, soft blankets, and Severus’ cold hands began to work here and there along Draco’s body, bandaging and applying ointments and whatever other ministrations he could to ease the suffering. “With a father like yours-”

“-_bastard_.”

There was heavy silence between them. Draco watched as Severus’ eyes found his, black meeting grey and a long, silent moment of sudden understanding. Severus paled.

“When did he first begin to beat you?” he asked quietly.

Draco tried to laugh, but the motion aggravated his ribs and became a groan. “Threats…were always there…” he sighed through clenched teeth. Severus’ hand squeezed his briefly. “But…he didn’t make good…on them…until after first year…”

“What happened?”

“I asked him…what was so bad…about mudbloods-”

“Do not use that word,” Severus interrupted shortly, and Draco hissed through his teeth as Severus’ hands became suddenly far less tender in splinting his left arm.

“No…magic?” he asked.

“I cannot risk healing you with magic,” Severus confirmed. “If your wounds heal too quickly the Dark Lord will know you have been helped, and he will not be pleased. If the Dark Lord finds out I’ve been down here at all, we will both die rather unpleasantly, and I can assure you that he will send someone down to visit you again, if he does not come himself. He intends to watch your suffering.”

Draco swallowed at the implications of that statement, and he now understood why Severus was concealing any bandaging he did.

“Please continue your story, Draco.”

Draco didn’t want to, but he swallowed hard and did as he was told. “I asked…my father…what was wrong…with…people…like Granger…” He inhaled sharply again and stifled a whimper. “I’d never…met one before…and now that…I had…I didn’t understand…what it was he hated about them…”

“And he was displeased?”

Draco gulped. “Very.”

Severus tied one last bandage, and then pressed one of his cold hands to Draco’s shoulder.

“I cannot offer you many comforts in this place, but I will help you as much as I can. I cannot promise when I will be able to come down here again. For now, do your best not to die, will you?”

And then he was gone…

_Draco blinked heavily. The hospital wing was too bright, the images swimming in front of his face as though he were underwater. He saw a pair of vivid green eyes widen, he heard something echoing in his ears, and the world went dark once more…_

It became a regular pattern. The Dark Lord would visit him in the morning, usually with his mother and father in tow and sometimes more spectators. Whatever new form of torture or torment he felt like that day, Draco would suffer cruelly. Sometimes it was over in a few minutes, sometimes it was almost the entire day before he was finally satisfied and would leave Draco to his pain. He was rarely aware of being left alone, usually pushed far past the point of comprehension and utterly unconscious by the time his punishment was over. Without fail, however, he was always awakened by cool, gentle, healing hands that smelled like leather and herbs, and Severus would stay as long as needed to try to undo the damage that had been done, all the while letting Draco talk, or cry, or whatever was needed to keep him distracted as Severus worked.

After a month, Draco was allowed to leave the cellar on one occasion; the meeting to determine what was to be done about Harry Potter. In that meeting, he listened. He trembled, both the aftereffects of the day’s torment and the horror he felt at what he was hearing. And then he’d watched Professor Burbage beg Severus to help her. He knew why she had been chosen, out of all the people who could have been chosen as tonight’s victim; she was Draco’s Muggle Studies teacher.

Draco knew if his father ever found out that his son was taking Muggle Studies of all subjects, he would never be allowed to leave his room, let alone return to Hogwarts. He knew that if he was ever discovered it would be the end of him, but he couldn’t help it. It had been two years and he still had no good explanation as to why his father hated these sorts of people and the wizards that came from them. He wanted to know more about these fellow humans who his father hated. He spent most of third year hiding in the back of the class, hoping to avoid notice, especially by Hermione Granger.

Professor Burbage had noticed. She knew who Draco was, and she knew about his family history. Instead of interrogating him, she approached him at the end of class, when none of the other students were around, and provided him with one of the greatest gifts ever; a Polyjuice Potion, made to look like her muggle nephew who no one would recognize or question in class. Draco never missed a class after that, sitting in the front row, asking questions, besting even Hermione in a class that was quickly becoming his favorite, even tying with his Potions class. He knew he was drawing more attention to himself than was wise, but each time he apologized at the end of the class, Professor Burbage always told him not to apologize, that she enjoyed his input, and she encouraged him to continue to be outgoing and enthusiastic, and Draco slowly began to feel that maybe, just this once, he could have something he loved that his father wouldn’t find out about and crush out of him.

Once, a few weeks before the night at the Astronomy Tower, she’d even hugged Draco, and told him that she was proud of all he’d done to help counter Umbridge during her reign of terror, and how grown-up her favorite student was becoming. She had told him then that she knew something was wrong, that he was struggling, but she also knew him well enough to know not to press. When he was ready, he could always, _always_ come to her, and she would help him. She promised. He’d hugged her back, and even as much as his mother cared for him, he had never before been aware of feeling a kindness and caring like this. He’d never felt as safe as he had that day.

And this was her reward for reaching out to a student in need.

He’d watched the Dark Lord show her as much mercy as he showed anyone. And then he’d been forced to watch Nagini eat her dinner, the Dark Lord watching him carefully all the while, waiting for a reaction, for any sign of revulsion, but Draco refused to show any. He kept his face blank, his eyes expressionless. 

When he was returned to his cell, though, he let himself dissolve. He coughed and retched at the memory of the snake’s feast. He cried. And he cried. And he cried. Severus held him as he wept, a silent and steady presence that he clung to in his grief and despair. There was no comfort to be had in those moments, when all Draco could do was sob over the loss of his beloved teacher, but Severus did what he could, and Draco appreciated his efforts more than anything else.

After that, Draco stopped talking about the past and stopped answering Severus’ questions about what he wanted to do when the war was over.

“You must have some idea,” Severus prompted.

“I don’t want to be here when the war is over,” Draco forced out in one breath.

The cold hands grabbed his face and forced him to meet the black eyes before him. “You do not mean that,” he said.

“I do,” Draco confirmed, without any attempt at stripping his eyes of emotions as he usually did. “If he wins, this will never end.” He gestured to himself, weak and helpless on the cold stone floor. “If he loses, I’m as good as dead anyway.” He let his head thump back onto the hard surface beneath him. “You know this by now, Severus. You know how I feel. Why won’t you help me?”

“Because I will not let you do this to yourself.”

“I’m no good to anyone anymore. I never was. I’m tired of the pain. I’m tired of his laughter. I’m tired of my mother screaming because I can’t control what I do when he punishes me.” He turned to meet Severus’ eyes once more. “Please, Severus. I’m begging you. Just let me die. You don’t even have to help me do it. Just don’t stop him from killing me. Just don’t treat me the next time you come. Just let it happen. _Please_.”

“Draco, this is not the way…”

“I don’t care!” Draco yelled, ignoring the flare of pain in his sides. “I don’t care what the right way is. This is what I want!”

“No, it isn’t,” Severus whispered firmly, reminding Draco that if he was heard, they were both in very deep trouble. “This is not what you want. You want this because you miss Charity Burbage, because you feel guilty for her death. You want the pain to end. You do not want to die.”

Draco blinked tears out of his eyes. “So what?”

“So, dying for no reason is a poor way to honor the memory of a loved one. Charity would have become a target for the Dark Lord sooner or later. She was a very active, very vocal woman. She wanted to make the world around her a better place for wizards and muggles alike. You were not at fault for her murder.”

Draco was crying in earnest now. “Please,” he said weakly. “_Please_…”

Severus placed a hand gently on Draco’s face. “I can’t,” he said, with far more kindness than Draco had ever heard him use. He held Draco’s gaze only a moment, and then he was gone once more.


	8. Fighting Back

“…_Draco?_”

_Harry’s face was clearer this time, still swimming in and out of his vision, but all of the details were there. He was holding tightly to Draco’s hand. As their eyes met, Harry’s lit with a hope that Draco hadn’t seen since before the war._

“_Draco_?” he asked, his voice far away. “_Madam Pomfrey!_”

_Draco saw the darkness creeping into his vision again, and he felt Harry’s hand tighten on him._

“_Come back, Draco,_”_ Harry’s voice called softly as the darkness swallowed him. _“_Come back…_”

Draco struggled to suppress his groan as he heard the door open again. He knew it must be morning, and he had learned that the door opening in the morning meant the pain was about to begin.

But this time there was only a vague muttering, and Draco was lifted magically into the air. He opened his eyes and found his father staring coldly at him.

“The Dark Lord wishes to see you,” he said, his voice as cold as his eyes.

“Lucky me,” Draco said, lacing his tired, pained voice with as much ice as he could muster.

Lucius flicked his wand, and Draco was pulled along behind him, unable to move his limbs as they traveled back up the stairs from the cellar, through the halls of the manor, and finally entered their largest drawing room, where a high-backed mahogany chair faced the marble fireplace. A huge snake slithered around on the green velvet rug beneath the chair, circling her master in an almost contented fashion.

Draco was forced to his knees, his back to the fire, his face to the creature in the chair.

“Good morning, Draco,” the Dark Lord said pleasantly, as though the eternity of torture had never happened.

Draco didn’t know which of the several plans running through his head would be better, so instead he kept silent, his head bowed respectfully.

“Do you know how long you have been away, Draco?”

Away; as if Draco had been on some sort of vacation, locked in his own cellar, screaming until his lungs burst.

“No, my lord.”

“It has been almost two months. Do you know what that means?”

“The summer is almost over, my lord.”

“Indeed. You will be returning to Hogwarts. Tomorrow, in fact.”

Draco wanted to look up in surprise, but he knew better; he would not play this game, allowing his own emotions and thoughts to be toyed with. Occlumency had taught him better than that. But he knew that he was expected to be surprised, and grateful.

“I am?” he asked, allowing just enough of his true surprise to slip in to avoid another punishment. “Thank you, my lord.”

“I have decided that your incompetence from last year shows that you are in desperate need of your final year of magical instruction,” the Dark Lord continued easily, stroking Nagini’s head as he spoke.

It was meant to be an insult to Draco, and he knew it even if he didn’t care.

“I am sorry again for my family’s failure, my lord,” he breathed, bending lower, making sure to find his father’s cold eyes as he did.

“For now, we will not speak of past failures and mistakes,” the Dark Lord assured him. “For now, we will talk only of what is to come. You shall be returning to Hogwarts, but I have heard many troubling rumors about your behaviors when you are away from your family, Draco…”

Draco swallowed hard.

“I will send you to school with a faithful servant, someone who will watch over you, and ensure you are following the path that is correct for you. My servant will alert me to any improper behaviors of yours, so take care that you do not stray from me again.”

Severus walked into the room, then, looking impassive, as always.

“You asked to see me, my lord?” He asked…

“_…don’t have to be afraid anymore, Draco_,” _a voice called out to him. Draco felt his own eyes fluttering, and bushy hair rustled beside him. Short, wide, slightly rough fingers touched his forehead._

“_Any change?” someone asked from his other side._

_The brown bush rustled, but Draco’s eyes were too unfocussed to tell if she was nodding or shaking her head._

_“It’s my turn to stay with Harry,” said the voice that didn’t belong to the bush._

_“Will you take notes for me?”_

_A chuckle. “You expect to get anything decent from my notes?”_

_The bush tutted. “At least write down the lesson topic? I’ll read about it myself.”_

_More confused muttering, and the bookish fingers ran gently through Draco’s hair._

_“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” she said again. “I know that’s why you hid yourself from everybody all those years, but you had to know I knew. I’ve known the real you ever since you sent me that torn page, the one about the basilisk. I recognized your writing on the back.” A thumb traced his fevered brow soothingly. “I didn’t understand why you wanted that part of you hidden, at least not until I understood about who your father was, but I respected your privacy. But Draco, your fear is putting you in danger now. Don’t lose yourself to the pain and the fear, Draco.”_

_Draco remembered that phrase, from another time when he felt himself sinking as he did now…_

“What did you think you were doing?” Severus asked coldly, shutting the door to his office with a sharp _snap_!

“Homework,” Draco said through clenched teeth, twisting in vain to break the grip on his upper arm. “You know bloody well what I was trying to do.”

“I hope it isn’t what it looked like,” Severus said, the temperature of his voice dropping still with every syllable, “because if you were, you are more foolish than I thought. You should have known that I would have to follow you there.”

Draco at last succeeded in pulling away. “Maybe that’s what I was hoping for,” he shot before he could stop himself. “The last time you met someone in the Astronomy Tower you chucked them off, remember?”

He knew in a second he had gone too far. Severus’ face was whiter than chalk, and his usually steady hands were shaking slightly. Draco couldn’t bring himself to care.

“If you weren’t going to let me jump you should have just pushed me over like you did him!”

Severus’ hand closed in a fist, but he made no move towards Draco. “You know by now that I had no choice,” he said in a barely-controlled voice. “It was an agreement made between Albus Dumbledore and myself. You are hurling childish insults at me in order to goad me into lashing out, but you will only find yourself disappointed. I did not murder him, and I will not allow you to murder yourself, or to persuade me to do so.”

“WHY?” Draco shouted, and in that moment he felt the last thread, the very last thin strand of control he had left to him, snap. He turned suddenly and flung out his arms, scattering everything on Severus’ desk, sending rolls of parchment and bottles of ink cascading onto the floor in a waterfall of mess.

“Draco!”

Draco heard the alarm and surprise in Severus’ voice, but he still couldn’t care or stop himself.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT ME?” he screamed, grabbing a thick tome and hurling it at one of the shelves. A sharp, shattering noise and several jars filled with potion and things suspended in strange liquids came shattering down, adding the sheen of the liquid and the sparkle of the crystal to the mess. “WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP ON LIVING? WHY IS EVERYONE ELSE ALLOWED TO DIE BUT ME? WHEN IS _MY _PUNISHMENT ALLOWED TO STOP?”

“_Enough_!”

Long, cold hands grabbed Draco by his wrists and spun him to Severus’ chest. Before Draco could draw away, the arms clamped down on his shoulder blades, pinning him into position.

“Stop this,” Severus commanded, his voice low and gentle. “Stop torturing yourself. _Stop_.”

As fast as his rage had come, Draco suddenly found himself depleted of any strength left to him. He felt his knees buckle, Severus’ arms the only thing keeping him upright, and he broke down, sobbing into his teacher’s chest. As he sobbed he heard Severus’ voice near his ear.

“I know,” he said. “I know it’s hard. I _know_ what you’ve been through, and I know this arrangement isn’t helping very much.”

“They hate me,” Draco managed thickly. “They _hate_ me. Even the Slytherins. I’m not a student anymore. I’m just a Death Eater.”

“They do not know what you have done for them,” Severus soothed. “They do not see beyond the curtain; they do not know who you are.”

“_Exactly_.” Draco sniffed and against his will allowed himself to be drawn in closer. “I’ve tried _so hard_ to help, and it doesn’t feel like enough. So many of the students…so many of their parents...they’re still dying, they’re still being tortured, and I can’t help them all…and then they still think I’m part of it, that I don’t vomit every time I have to watch…” he clenched his teeth and sobbed some more.

“I know,” Severus said, his own voice a bit thick now with emotion.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Draco heard himself whine, and he hated himself even more for it.

“You can,” Severus promised, “and you must. You cannot save everyone, but you can save some, and those some are the ones who need you to keep going. Without you, they are lost.” Severus pulled away a bit, and fixed Draco with his black eyes. “You can be angry, Draco. You can be afraid, you can be sad, you can even have very fleeting moments when you are fed up. But you cannot stop, or you will lose yourself to him again. Feel it, but don’t lose yourself to it. Don’t lose yourself to the pain and the fear.”

Draco didn’t know how to respond, so he let his forehead fall against his mentor’s chest. Severus guided him through the doors on the other side of the room to the living space that they were obliged to share. Steering Draco through the suite, he opened the door to Draco’s room and deposited him onto his bed. The starry bear that Severus had given him a few months ago for Christmas lay on the pillow, patiently awaiting Draco’s need.

“You have used too many sleeping draughts lately,” Severus noted.

“They keep more away than the bear,” Draco answered thinly.

“Still, you must leave off of them for a while. Especially if you are entertaining the idea of Astronomy Tower acrobatics. Too much sleeping draught can do the exact same thing.” With a quick wave of his wand, Severus summoned every bottle of the stuff from Draco’s shelves, directing them into his own bedroom, where there was a locked cabinet whose only key Severus kept extremely well-hidden.

“You are shaking,” he noted when he returned. “Is it just from what happened earlier?”

Draco shook his head. “Somewhat,” he answered, “but now that the latest episode is over I want to sleep, and I can’t. Not without the potions.”

Severus nodded in understanding. The nightmares had grown so frequent lately that Draco had been drinking two full draughts before bed each night, in anticipation of what was to come, and now his body was shaking from the shock of suddenly not having them.

Severus pressed something small into Draco’s hand. It was a box of cigarettes. Draco looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.

“You want me to trade one addiction for another?” he asked.

“I want you to trade a harmful addiction for a harmless one,” Severus agreed. “There is nothing in these which will harm you. They are not the cancerous blights muggles use, though they are fashioned after them.” He plucked one from the box and inhaled deeply, the tip lighting as soon as it was put to his lips. The smoke that rolled from his nostrils smelled warm and earthy, like mushroom soup. “If you need anything tonight, anything at all, I want you to come straight to me. Is that understood?”

Draco nodded slowly, placing one of the cigarettes to his own lips and inhaling the taste of Dobby’s sugar cookies. The elf had always been careful to use very coarse salt, so that Draco always enjoyed a mostly sweet taste, occasionally catching bits of extreme salt that complimented the sugar in a way that Draco absolutely loved.

“Good night, Draco,” Severus said softly, and Draco heard the door shut behind him.

_…“Don’t kill him! DON’T KILL HIM!” Malfoy yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, who were both aiming at Harry: their split second’s hesitation was all Harry needed._

_“Expelliarmus!”_

_Goyle’s wand flew out of his hand and disappeared into the bulwark of objects beside him. Draco would have breathed a sigh of relief if he hadn’t needed to jump out of range of Granger’s Stunning Spell. The rest of the struggle and the run from the Fiendfyre was a blur of running, screaming, tangles of legs and blistering skin as the flames roared about them. He didn’t know how he managed to get himself and Goyle up onto the pile of charred desks, but somehow, he managed. The Fiendfyre darted about them, desperately trying to feast on the trapped rats it had found. One of the many mouths reached out and managed to swipe Draco’s ankle, and he screamed, tears leaking down his face. He was going to die. He wasn’t sure which part was worse, that he was going to die or that he was going to die knowing he still hadn’t done enough to help atone for all of the evil he’d created, all the pain he’d helped to spread._

_And then Draco saw him, his dark mess of hair blowing in short spikes around his head, one arm outstretched, reaching for Draco, open and inviting. He had never touched Draco’s hand before; he had refused Draco’s hand that day in their first year, had nearly recoiled at the thought of having to touch it, but now it was there, one last redemption, one final goodbye to everything Draco might have been able to have._

_Draco reached for Potter’s hand, knowing it was no good; Goyle was too heavy and Draco’s hand, covered in sweat, slid instantly out of Potter’s—_

_“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’LL KILL YOU, HARRY!” roared Weasley’s voice, and as a great, flaming Chimaera bore down upon them he and Granger dragged Goyle onto their broom and rose, rolling and pitching, into the air once more as Draco clambered up behind Potter. Everything faded once again into a blur of pain and terror and screaming and then suddenly Draco was off the broom, gasping, coughing, and retching, his vision swimming and his lungs burning._

_But he was alive. He was saved, at least for the moment. Because of Potter. Because of Harry._

_Harry…_

“…Harry…”

Draco’s eyes opened.


	9. Not Again

Harry had been sitting beside the bedside all weekend, since his last class had released for the day. He hadn’t bothered with meals, or naps, or anything that didn’t involve holding Draco’s hand, stroking the back lightly with his thumb, staring intently at his pale, pointed face, willing those starry grey eyes to open.

“I am so, so sorry Draco,” he found himself whispering. “I should have said something sooner; I should have pressed you harder about what was happening.” He pressed his forehead to Draco’s hand.

“Mr. Potter,” a silky voice announced. Professor Snape’s cool hand landed on Harry’s shoulder. Harry flinched, although he was becoming better at calming his nerves and Professor Snape was making a greater effort to be softer when speaking with Harry.

The hand on his shoulder paused when Harry stiffened, and then its thumb stroked his shoulder gently, the way a parent might to offer comfort. Harry relaxed, and Professor Snape took a seat beside him. His black eyes, once so cold, now fixed on Draco’s still form with a sorrow so deep that Harry felt it keenly as well as his own.

“Mr. Malfoy is a strong, sturdy young man,” he said quietly. “But he is very tired.”

“Is there anything you can do for him?” Harry asked, aware of how much he sounded as though he had a bad head cold and not caring in the slightest.

“He is in the best hands with Madam Pomfrey,” Professor Snape replied.

“She said that the potion they made him drink…it made him take the slight about deserving to…” he shook his head, unable to finish. “She said it made him take it to heart…that he’s trying to…”

Professor Snape nodded. “He is not subject to the potions effects completely, but he will need a strong sense of will, and a good understanding that he does not deserve to die, in order to recover.”

Harry didn’t want to cry again. Not in front of Professor Snape. He swallowed the burning in his throat, but the tears leaked out against his will.

Black robes suddenly engulfed him, and Harry was being pressed awkwardly but sincerely to his Potions master’s chest.

“Shhh,” he heard his teacher whisper, though he could hear that his was not the only unsteady voice.

Harry nodded, trying to steady himself if only to help soothe the man who held him. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of old leather and the pleasantness of bitter greens. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he felt something almost like family between himself and his teacher.

When Harry had emptied himself of all the tears in him, he pulled slightly away, choosing not to mention that his scalp was damp from Snape…Professor Snape…Severus’ tears.

“It is Monday, and breakfast is almost over; I must get back to my students,” he said in a somewhat stiff voice. “And you have class in a few minutes yourself, if I am not mistaken.”

“I can get notes from Hermione…”

“He will still be here when class is over…”

“What if he’s not?” Harry asked, managing to swallow the catch in his voice.

Severus placed a hand on his shoulder. “He will be,” he promised, “Mr. Malfoy is stronger than you give him credit for. Now come; let him rest a while, and you can visit him again once class is over…”

Hours later, Harry was again beside Draco’s bed, this time with his invisibility cloak in his school bag by the bed. He knew that Snape had been trying to help, but he didn’t care if he got in trouble for skipping classes tomorrow. He was going to stay here, with Draco, until he woke up. He took Draco’s hand, caressing it with his own. There was nothing to keep him from staying here as long as Draco needed him…

“…Harry…”

Harry heard his name, but he shook his head. He had fallen asleep, too tired to continue his vigil over Draco. His head was resting on the blankets by Draco’s side, still clasping Draco’s hand.

The fingers flexed, ever so slightly.

Harry’s head snapped up, his eyes wide.

Draco was stirring, tiny coughs puffing out every now and then, and slowly his eyelids rose, the sparkling grey orbs beneath searching slowly, taking in every small detail of his surroundings. He blinked slowly at the ceiling, mouthing wordlessly to himself for a moment. He looked down at himself, watching the blankets with a very dazed expression. He flexed his fingers weakly, and a frown creased his brow. Slowly, his head turned to where his hand lay on the blankets, and he focused carefully on the fact that there was another hand in his. His eyes traveled upwards, following the arm connected to the strange hand, and then they found Harry’s vivid green eyes.

“Harry…” Draco murmured, his voice very soft, very weak, very vulnerable. The hand that was not already held reached for him slowly.

Harry couldn’t stop himself then. He stood from his chair on cramped legs, leaning forward before he could think, and pressed his lips to Draco’s.

Harry had never kissed another man before. He had expected it to be…well, he wasn’t sure what he expected it to be, but certainly not this. Draco’s lips were warm, soft, sweetened in his surprise. Harry’s heart was hammering painfully against his ribs, breaking itself against the walls of its cage as it tried to burst forth, to find Draco’s heart. When Draco slowly began to relax into the kiss, his lips parting for Harry, Harry’s head started to spin. His bones were on fire, almost like the Cruciatus Curse, but this time it wasn’t painful. This time, the fire was warming instead of torturous. This time, Harry didn’t want the sensation to end.

Draco hummed as Harry tried to press even closer, laughing against Harry’s lips when he almost tipped himself onto Draco’s bed.

“Miss me, did you?” he asked, still in that weak, soft voice.

“_Never_,” Harry answered, hearing the tremors in his own voice, “scare me like that again, Draco Malfoy.” And then his mouth was against Draco’s again, drinking him in, kissing him with a painful urgency.

Draco let out a soft sort of sighing moan, his fingers curling into the front of Harry’s robes.

“You…mmm…you were…scared?” Draco asked in between Harry’s kisses.

“Terrified,” Harry confirmed, tilting his face down, giving Draco’s jaw and throat attention, drawing a surprised, contented sigh from him. Harry didn’t understand what was making him suddenly throw himself at Draco like this. He knew only that for whatever reason he couldn’t stop himself from touching, caressing, worshiping any part of Draco he could.

“Really?” Draco breathed, his chest heaving, his breath coming quicker than before.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” Harry whispered into the base of Draco’s throat, smoothing his hands down Draco’s chest. “I can’t lose you, Draco. I can’t.” The tears he had been holding back since the morning before started to come out, littering Draco’s pristine white bedclothes. His lips found a patch of bare skin near Draco’s shoulder. “I can’t,” he wept, pressing his lips now to Draco’s pulse, proof that he was in fact still alive. “I can’t.”

“Hey, hey, enough, Harry,” Draco soothed, his weak voice instantly capturing Harry’s ears. His arms trembled as he reached up, wrapping Harry in his arms and pulling him down closer.

“M’sorry,” Harry sobbed into Draco’s shoulder, ashamed of himself for falling apart so easily. He was Harry fucking Potter. He wasn’t supposed to act like this.

“Shhhh…” fragile fingers were combing through Harry’s scalp. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you want to know why?” Some of the fingers rested gently on the back of Harry’s neck. “Because you decided before any of this that I deserved another chance.”

Harry sniffed, looking up. “What?”

Draco wiped tears from Harry’s eyes with tired fingers. “You saved me in the Room of Requirement. The War was far from over. He was still very much alive. You didn’t know which side was going to win, none of us did. You didn’t even know if I was on your side. I gave you every reason to think that I was wholly loyal to Him. But you still thought I deserved another chance. If you could think that of me when I was that low, when circumstances were that dire, why shouldn’t I think that of myself now when it’s all over and I know that I’ve chosen the right way this time?”

Harry smiled, touching Draco’s face softly. His smile faded. Draco’s cheeks were still flushed a deep red, and his skin was still quite warm. The initial relief and finding him awake had driven all thought of his illness from his mind, but now that he had calmed he noticed quite plainly how drained Draco still seemed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Draco repeated firmly, but his voice had grown softer, his eyelids heavier. “I…I like this dream better than…the last few…” his eyes closed, and his head fell to one side.

“Draco?” Harry called, shaking his shoulders slightly. “Madam Pomfrey!”

The nurse was there is a second, gently brushing Harry aside so she could inspect Draco.

After several long, painful moments, she turned to Harry. “He is fine, Mr. Potter,” she promised. “He is just sleeping. He spent a lot of energy fighting off the last suggestion of that potion, that’s all.”

“He’s…why is he still feverish?”

Madam Pomfrey put a hand gently on Harry’s shoulder. “Mental health is far harder to fix than physical, Harry,” she said kindly. “He has convinced himself that he does not deserve death for what happened to him, but it doesn’t mean he has convinced himself that he didn’t deserve anything else that was said to him.” She patted Harry’s shoulder. “When he’s rested and awake, I will release him from the hospital wing, and you can take him back to his dormitory. He will simply have to live with the sickness until he can convince himself that their suggestion was wrong.”

Harry nodded, and as the nurse left him he resumed his seat, waiting for Draco to wake up, a sudden doubt niggling in the back of his mind now. Draco had mentioned a dream…did he think this moment they’d just shared was only a dream? Would he even remember it when he woke up again? He said he’d liked it better…did that mean he felt the same way as Harry, or did that mean that at least it was better than whatever else he’d seen in his slumber?

Harry wished he could have someone to talk to about these concerns…but there was no one. They’d all left, one way or another. Everyone he’d loved, they’d all been taken from him no matter how hard he’d tried to hold on to them, no matter how hard he’d tried to protect them. Harry raised his eyes, taking in Draco’s sleeping form, peaceful, safe, for now…

Harry stood up suddenly, searching his school bag for parchment and a quill, scribbling a note to Draco explaining where he’d gone and why, and he left the hospital wing, ignoring the burning in his throat and the prickling feeling behind his eyes.


	10. Pisces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I feel like this title needs some explaining...Ron is a Pisces, both canonically and he freakin' acts like a Pisces. This chapter was named for him.

Harry loved him. Harry _loved_ him. Draco couldn’t keep the smile off of his face, even as he lay sleeping. Draco didn’t think it could be true, but people didn’t just start snogging someone they didn’t have feelings for. At least, Harry Potter didn’t. That wasn’t his way, and Draco knew that. No, there was no second-guessing or doubting that was going to talk him out of this happy moment. _Harry loved him_.

Draco opened his eyes, unable to wait for the moment when he could see those vivid eyes again, knowing that he loved him.

No one was there.

Draco sat up, his smile fading. There was no trace of Harry anywhere. What had happened? Where was he? A thought came back to Draco’s mind: _I…I like this dream better than…the last few…_

Draco had been already beginning a dream which left off where Harry’s kisses had ended. Had he accidentally said his thoughts out loud? Had Harry known what he meant? Was Harry uncomfortable now?

Draco swung his legs from his bed, intending to find Madam Pomfrey and ask her where Harry had gone, but before he stood up his eyes fell on a piece of parchment on his bedside table:

_Draco— Sorry I couldn’t stay longer; I had to get to class. I stopped by this morning before breakfast to see how you were feeling, and Madam Pomfrey says that you woke up for a few minutes before I got there? That’s great! I’m glad to see you’re feeling better! –Harry_

Draco’s heart sunk. He had been so sure that it was real…

After a very lengthy once-over, Draco was free to leave the hospital wing. He had been given orders not to overexert himself and to watch his body temperature; Madam Pomfrey had been unable to cure the illness Draco was feeling almost constantly. He knew it was stupid of him to have fought down the notion that he deserved to die only to be saddled with the notion that he deserved to constantly be almost ill enough to live in the hospital wing, but he couldn’t help it. The nurse had tried to soothe him, telling him that in time he could rid himself of this side effect as well, but he wasn’t so sure. And now that all his hopes that he believed to be coming true were suddenly cast into doubt, it threw everything else into shadows and uncertainty as well. He made his way slowly towards Ambrosius Tower, his head too full of thoughts and questions that could not be answered to hear the soft whispers at first, but as soon as he did, his head snapped up, his blood running cold, and he ducked into an alcove behind a suit of armor, his heart hammering against his ribs.

“We’re not going to get caught, Zach! Just calm down…”

“Michael, he saw us. He knows who gave him that potion.”

Draco’s heart froze; although from his hiding place he couldn’t see their faces, he knew exactly who those voices belonged to. Memories flashed through his mind. Body-Bind curses, his mouth forced open, the sharp point of a quill on his stomach…

“So?” Michael’s voice sounded unsure, nervous even. “If he hasn’t told the nurse by now…”

“Michael, use your head!” Zach growled in frustration. “This isn’t some stupid prank on a first year! This is _Draco fucking Malfoy_. And we almost killed him!”

Michael was silent for a long time. “We went way to far,” he said at last, and Draco’s heart warmed by the tiniest of fractions.

“Grow up!” Zach scoffed. “He didn’t tell the nurse because he’s going to try to get us back.”

“Zach, that’s a rather big stretch, don’t you think?”

“Michael,” Zach began again, with the air of reminding a very stupid child how to blink. “Do you remember what Malfoy was like before You-Know-Who took over the school? When did he ever let someone piss him off without getting them back, let alone anyone that outright attacked him? Remember when Hagrid’s hippogriff got his arm?”

“…He had the hippogriff killed…”

“And that was just his arm.” Zach paused. “What d’you suppose he’s got in mind for us?”

There was another long pause, and Draco kept his hand over his mouth to keep them from hearing his erratic breathing.

“C’mon,” Zach said firmly, “we need to make sure he can’t ever come after us.”

“Okay,” said Michael, though he sounded none too thrilled about it.

Draco waited until they were gone, his heart thumping wildly, terrified at what Zach might have meant. As soon as their footsteps died away, Draco ran, heading as quickly as he could for the tower, ignoring the chill he began to feel inside as his fever slowly began to return, or the way his knees shook with the effort to hold him up.

After gasping “unity” Draco stumbled through the hole behind the suit of armor, his arms wrapped around himself. No one was in the common room yet; most of the students were still at dinner. He breathed a sigh of relief. As the school year had moved on, Draco’s tormentors from his own house had died down, choosing either to ignore him or to at least hate him quietly. He was safe here, away from the students who remembered what it was like to be trapped in the school and watch the children of Death Eaters do the Dark Lord’s work for him, terrorizing and abusing their fellow children. He was safe from them here, but he was still grateful for the lack of witnesses to his distress.

Draco’s vision was swimming, and he knew his fever had spiked. His trembling hand reached inside his robes for the Cooling Draught that Madam Pomfrey had given him in case he needed it. She had promised to send more along, but thought that one should be all that Draco would need for the night. His clammy hands found the smooth glass vial, but his fingers struggled to get a grip on the slippery container. At last his fingers closed around the stoppered cylinder, and he drew it out.

“…Draco? Draco, come on. Draco, wake up.”

Someone was tapping his face sharply. It was a large, calloused hand with bitten and uneven fingernails. Draco opened his eyes, watching the face of Ron Weasley slide into focus as he slowly sat up. He was sprawled out on the floor of the common room without any idea of how he’d gotten there. He shivered slightly, feeling a sudden chill, and drew his robes tighter around himself.

“C’mon,” Ron grunted, hoisting Draco to his feet and walking him over to the largest, squashiest sofa by the fire. He deposited Draco, and after a, “wait here,” and a momentary absence, he returned from his bedroom with several thick, hand-knitted blankets which he threw over Draco, tucking him in like a child, and propped his head against the arm with a thick, soft pillow. Draco tried not to stare; he was on friendly enough terms with Ron, enough to use their first names with each other but not nearly friendly enough to be cared for so tenderly, so automatically.

“Thanks,” he said weakly, trying hard not to look Ron in the face.

“Here,” Ron said, ignoring Draco’s thanks, and Draco found the large, calloused hand cradle the base of his head, lifting it and bringing a thermos of hot broth to his lips. When he tasted the familiar earthy flavor, he frowned at Ron as he swallowed.

“I’m not starving, Weasley,” he said slowly, unable to completely lose his habit of calling his friends by their surname when he was feeling especially vulnerable.

“You didn’t eat dinner,” he said. “We figured you hadn’t been allowed to leave the hospital wing yet, so I asked Snape for some soup to bring you, just in case you were hungry.”

Draco blinked, touched at the thoughtfulness. “I…thanks,” he said again.

Again, Ron ignored the thanks, peering skeptically into the thermos. “Dunno how this is supposed to fill you up; there’s nothing in it but broth.”

“It’s called hibachi soup,” Draco said, his voice sounding as tired as he felt. “You simmer the vegetables and things for a long time…and the broth takes on the flavor.” He sighed and closed his eyes.

“Not yet,” Ron told him, and the thermos was brought back to his lips. Ron helped him to drink the rest of it, and then wiped his mouth for him as he lay back on the pillow.

“Where is everyone else?” he asked, not bothering to offer his thanks again; it seemed that for whatever reason Ron didn’t want to accept them.

“Still at dinner, I expect,” Ron answered, feeling Draco’s forehead with the back of his hand. “I finished early so I could get the soup from Snape.” He frowned. “D’you want more of this?” he asked, holding up the bottle of Cooling Draught that Draco had been trying to grab earlier. “It looked like that’s what you were trying for when I found you. It brought your fever down, but I didn’t know how much to give you…”

Draco shook his head, feeling severely chilled. He stirred, wanting to pull the blankets more tightly around himself, but before he could, Ron had already done so.

“Better?” he asked.

Draco nodded. “Thank you.”

“Shut up with that,” Ron said, though his tone did not match his words. He sank down to sit cross-legged on the floor, his face level with Draco’s. “We’re friends, Draco.”

“Did you do this sort of thing for Harry?” Draco asked, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

“Not the exact same thing,” Ron admitted, “but more than once I sat up with him at night, even if he didn’t know it. His nightmares can get pretty real, and it felt weird, going to sleep when I knew he was having a rough time of it. He’d wake up screaming, or sweating or shaking, and I’d try to make it look like I’d just woken up to, so he didn’t feel bad but he could talk to me if he wanted. Sometimes I’d cast charms on the other boys’ beds so Harry could cry and scream all he wanted without worrying about what the others would say. Whatever he needed at the time.”

“You’re…you’re a master of p-parallels, Weasley,” Draco tried to scoff playfully, but the chill he felt got in the way. “M-mothering your friends and delighting in the f-f-ferret fortunes of your enemies.”

Ron laughed heartily, a few tears coming to his blue eyes as he did.

“I’m sorry,” Draco said, more soberly this time. “I’ve never s-said that to you before, but I’m sorry. For all of it.”

“I know,” Ron said simply. “And I don’t care, really. I mean, yeah you were a git for it, and a spoiled brat to boot, but it’s not worth holding a grudge for the rest of our lives. Besides, Harry likes you well enough, so that’s enough for me.”

Draco blushed, hoping Ron wouldn’t see.

Bloody Gryffindors.

“You like him, don’t you?”

“We’re friends,” Draco insisted, wishing he could say it was more.

“Not what I mean, Malfoy,” Ron pressed.

Draco gritted his teeth.

“Alright, I like him,” Draco reluctantly admitted. “A lot. The way his eyes flash; the sound of him laughing; his goodness; how thick he can be sometimes.” He chuckled, and now that he’d been made to admit it he couldn’t help himself from saying it aloud. “I love him, alright?”

“Good,” Ron said, sitting back on his hands and stretching his legs out to warm his feet. “Because I haven’t asked and he hasn’t told me, but I think he fancies you, too.”

Draco’s heart soared; maybe he hadn’t been dreaming after all…

“Thanks, Ron,” Draco whispered.

“I’m here for you, mate,” he whispered back.


	11. The Wrong Answer

_And Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing to Snape, who for a split second seemed to think he had been reprieved: But then Voldemort’s intention became clear. The snake’s cage was rolling through the air, and before Snape could do anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue._

_“Kill.”_

_There was a terrible scream…_

“Harry, shhh…Harry…”

_“Look…at…me…” he whispered._

_The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more…_

“No…” Harry sobbed…_he remained kneeling at Snape’s side, simply staring down at him, until quite suddenly a high, cold voice spoke so close to them that Harry jumped to his feet, the flask gripped tightly in his hands, thinking that Voldemort had reentered the room…_

“Harry, it’s alright…it’s just a nightmare…” a soft voice whispered, and elegant hands ran through his hair and stroked his cheeks lightly with their thumbs. “Harry, it’s alright…just wake up…come on, just come back…come back to me, Harry…”

Harry’s eyes flew open, staring around in the darkness. Something silvery-white was leaning over him, granting him soft caresses and murmuring sweetly into his ear.

“Welcome back, Harry,” Draco said, and Harry could hear the smile on his face. God, how Harry wanted to kiss him right now. Wrap his arms around him, pull him down onto the bed with him, curl into his chest and drift off to sleep once more…

Harry sat straight up, gently pushing away Malfoy’s hands, and reached out to grab his glasses from his nightstand. As soon as he put them on, he wished he hadn’t. Draco’s face was surprised and even a little hurt at Harry’s rejection.

“Sorry,” Harry said quietly. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Draco promised. “I was up anyway.” His hurt look slowly began to be replaced by one of deep concern. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Harry shook his head so fast it made him dizzy; he couldn’t let that happen…if it did, if he let Draco get close enough to hear about that…there was no going back, and Harry would _not_ lose anyone else to his own misfortunes.

“Pomfrey said you were alright then?” he asked instead, desperate to change the subject.

Draco blinked, and after a moment seemed to recover himself. “Not completely,” he admitted. “But she said I’m well enough to leave the hospital wing. The rest will just have to take time. For now, she gave me Pepperup Potions and Cooling Draughts to relieve the symptoms.”

Harry forced a smile. “I’m glad to hear it.” Then, stretching and miming a huge yawn, he put his glasses on the night stand and pretended to snuggle in deeper under his covers. “Well, goodnight then.” He rolled over so he could face the wall, and after a moment he heard the soft, hesitant steps of Draco going into his own bed. Harry clamped his eyes shut, trying to pretend that it didn’t hurt like hell that he couldn’t crawl right into bed with him.

With time, Draco began to need the Cooling Draughts less and less. His fevers diminished on the rare occasions when they did crop up, and eventually he went for a check-up to have Madam Pomfrey pronounce him fully cured. He firmly repeated that it was only time that he needed, but Harry saw the change the school was beginning to have towards him.

Students were beginning to realize that Draco was not the same arrogant, drawling boy who’d kept up his family’s façade of sanguine purity all those years. They were beginning to see Draco the way Harry did, as a young man who’d made his share of mistakes and was doing his best to atone for them in the only ways he knew how. Knowing that he was truly a better person than they’d given him credit for, the students started to warm up to him, or at the very least to stop threatening him on a regular basis, and as the threats and animosity diminished, so did Draco’s perception of his own guilt. Harry was beyond happy for him; he just wished he could be a part of the happiness.

Harry tried his hardest to avoid needing Draco as time passed, but it was hard, and he didn’t know how long he would realistically be able to hold out. He’d already woken up several times in the night, shaking and sweating. Draco would have of course been beside him in an instant, but Harry, anticipating this, had cast charms around his bed to silence his screams and to prevent his falling out of bed when he thrashed.

Ron and Hermione knew something was wrong, but Harry just assured them that he was fine and shrugged off their protests. They didn’t need to be a part of this either. No one did. He was Harry Fucking Potter, and he knew better than to ask for help from others. He was supposed to do this himself, nightmares and all.

Well, he could almost do this himself. He could make it through the day with only the occasional frantic run into the bathroom to calm down, with only the smallest of flashbacks, but nights were harder. He was less guarded, he was less alert, and his nightmares were brutal and relentless. On those nights, he had to use a friend for help. He started keeping a bottle of firewhiskey in his bedside cabinet, its sharp, biting cinnamon flavor reminding him as it slid down his throat that he was alive, its alcoholic burn getting him drunk enough to fall back asleep. Sometimes, when the dreams were particularly awful, when they included people that he hadn’t lost, like Ron or Dudley or Draco…those nights Harry went one step further. Those nights, he would drink enough firewhiskey not to care that one should never _ever_ mix it with a Sleeping Draught, and then would drink the Sleeping Draught. Those nights took some explaining, because then although he didn’t have nightmares, Draco couldn’t wake him up for class, and when he finally did come to, disoriented and often confused, the fright and concern in those starry grey eyes was more than Harry could handle after nights like that.

All in all, being an alcoholic who was addicted to Sleeping Draughts was more of a problem than Harry had bargained for. His grades began to fall, he stopped remembering to go to class, he was constantly dodging the few friends he did have, and in general he just felt miserable.

Once, after nearly three months of living half-dead, Harry decided he was through with feeling like he was stumbling through existence. Drunk enough to want to do something about it and not sober enough to think clearly, he’d launched his almost empty bottle of booze out the window of his dormitory, watching the enormous ripples the splashing glass made, followed by a shining, slippery tentacle flicking it back out onto the bank, unappreciative of litter in her…his… its home. He snatched his invisibility cloak from his trunk, careful not to wake a slumbering Draco, and all but sprinted from his room. He made it down the staircases and through the hallways without any teacher disturbing him, forgetting that even if they did see him, the students of Ambrosius house were being given a bit more breathing room than the typical Hogwarts student, since they were all not only clearly adults but had also fought as members of the Order of the Phoenix and had more than proven themselves capable of responsible behavior. He made it all the way to the hospital wing, within inches of Madam Pomfrey’s door, his knuckles about to knock, to alert her to his distress, his need for help.

He couldn’t do it. He was Harry Fucking Potter. He wasn’t supposed to need help. He was supposed to do this alone. He wasn’t supposed to need anyone. People got killed when he needed them. People lost their lives when he asked for help. He had forgotten that he wasn’t allowed to need anyone anymore, but now that the realization had come back with the force of the Hogwarts Express itself, he found his hand shaking, his feet turning cold, and a voice, loud and angry in his head, asking how he could do this. How he could put his friends in danger again. His family. _My wife and son! At risk because of your kind!_ Voices shouted in his head, and unbidden memories of Uncle Vernon and the times that Harry hadn’t been able to control his magic leapt to his mind, scolding him again and again for trying to get help, the flashes stinging as sharply as the memories of the belt on his back.

Harry leapt from the door and ran. He didn’t even know where he was running to, only that he was running and he couldn’t stop. What did it matter anyway? So what if he ran out a window because he wasn’t looking? So what if he accidentally ended up face-first in the floor like an idiot? It was what he was, anyway. It didn’t matter what happened as he ran, only that he put as much distance between himself and that too-tempting door, between himself and help, as possible.

_There is no good and evil_, a voice rang suddenly in his mind as he felt the cool bite of the November air hit his face; he must be outside…_There is only power, and those too weak to seek it…_

He was too weak. Everyone always compared him to Voldemort, but Harry was beginning to realize that it was not Voldemort to whom he bore the strongest resemblance. It was Albus Dumbledore. They weren’t good. They’d gotten scores of people killed because they were too young, too weak, too afraid to do what they’d known needed to be done. People had suffered because they’d selfishly wanted a normal life for Harry, one that he’d known was never his to have. Harry wasn’t bad, though. He had stood up to injustice, small or large, when he’d seen it. He made friends with others based on their character, not their abilities or what they had to offer him, the way Dumbledore had. Both of them had accepted people that others would have shunned because they saw the good in them and wanted it nearer to themselves, regardless of what other more judgmental people said. They were powerful, that much was clear. Dumbledore was too weak to keep his manipulative side under control, too weak to know that he didn’t need to play a puppet master and that he could trust the people around him to know what was best without his games. Harry was too weak to admit that he wasn’t allowed to reach out for help the way others could, too weak to keep the needy part of himself from emerging.

There was no good or evil. There was only their power, and the fact that they were both too weak to use it right…

A knocking sound jarred Harry out of his spiraling revelation, and he was surprised to find himself outside of Hagrid’s door. His fist was raised, but he didn’t remember deciding to knock or even deciding to walk to Hagrid’s house.

“I were startin’ ta wonder about ya! Ya don’ usually take so…”

The door opened, but Hagrid looked a bit flustered at finding Harry there. It didn’t occur to Harry that perhaps the flustered air had more to do with the fact that he was half-under his invisibility cloak until several moments after Hagrid began to speak.

“Ah…Harry!” Hagrid’s face suddenly split into a huge grin. “It’s been ages since ya came down ta see me! Come in! I jus’ made some tea.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to do, but his body seemed to decide of its own accord. Stiffly he crossed the threshold. Fang jumped to try to lick Harry’s face, but as soon as the boarhound’s paws touched Harry’s shoulders, he returned himself to the floor, whimpering slightly.

“Fang?” Hagrid looked from his dog to his guest. “Harry, you alrigh’? Ya don’ seem yerself lately. Ron an’ Hermione say ya’ve bin dodgen’ ’em, an’ Draco ain’t had five minutes with ya since term started.”

Harry turned his head with difficulty and looked into Hagrid’s bushy face. His beetle eyes were crinkled with concern, a great mug of tea making its way to the table.

Harry had never been good at lying to Hagrid. He opened his mouth, but nothing would come out.

“Harry?” The tea forgotten, Hagrid’s huge hand wiped a tear from Harry’s eye as gently as he could.

And suddenly, everything crashed. Harry was buried in Hagrid’s arms, sobbing his heart out, shaking from head to foot.

“Harry…” Hagrid cooed, petting Harry’s mess of hair. He didn’t even seem surprised. “Harry, why d’ya have to let things get so bad before ya say enough?”

Harry didn’t want to answer the uncomfortable question, so he buried his face deeper into Hagrid’s diaphragm and cried even harder.

“Harry…Harry…shh, Harry, shh…” Hagrid scooped Harry up and sat on his bed, holding Harry like a child while Harry gasped and choked out more tears.

Why was he doing this? He was Harry Fucking Potter! What right did he have to seek comfort from Hagrid like this? What right did he have to seek comfort like this from anyone? The only person who’d ever held him like this before had been Mrs. Weasley…and her reward had been to lose one son for almost two years over the politics of being Harry’s friend, to lose the ear of another son to Harry’s defense, and to lose the life of a third because Harry couldn’t be quick about getting in and out of Hogwarts before Voldemort found him. What right…?  


As if reading his thoughts, Hagrid responded gruffly. “Ya have every right ta help when ya need it, Harry,” he offered, rocking Harry in his arms. “Maybe ya are The Boy Who Lived but yer still just a boy, no more no less.”

Harry, finally finding his voice, choked out a single word: “Eighteen.”

To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled. “My point exactly. Yer on’y eighteen. What ye’ve gone through is more’n’s fair to ask of anyone at any age, but ’specially not of a kid. Just let it out,” he instructed, for Harry’s crying had resumed in the face of Hagrid’s understanding and compassion, and Harry just didn’t have the strength to argue. He buried his face as deep as it would go, and he howled his sorrows into Hagrid until he felt his grief and his hatred turning slowly into exhaustion…

“…Did he say what was wrong?”

“No. He didn’ seem like he could hardly speak. He looked at me, an’ then he was just cryin’ so hard…” Harry heard some indistinct muttering but kept his eyes closed. He felt so comfortable on this cavernous bed beneath its warm, sweet-smelling quilt that he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was awake, no matter how rude it was to eavesdrop on this conversation.

“I’m almost glad that I was late tonight. If I had been here when he showed up, I doubt Harry would have opened up to you so readily.”

“Sev.” There was a pause.

“I know what you’re going to say, Rubeus,” Severus began in a tired voice. “But I would remind you, once again, that there are factors you have failed to consider in your desire for a reconciliation between myself and Harry. In the first place, he still greatly resembles…” Severus didn’t seem to be able to say the name of his former tormentor. “…and whether or not I like it, I cannot choose who I see when I look at Harry.”

“Yer better now than ye were.”

“But not as ‘better’ as I need to be to heal that breach between us,” Severus continued. “In the second place, we have both spent several years actively hating one another, and that does not fix itself overnight.”

“Sev,” Hagrid sighed. “I don’t see why ya need this to be so much of a thing. Yeh both said yer sorry. Yeh both are tryin’. Harry would have come here and done what he did whether you were here or not. He’s let himself get pushed too far; he’s tried to take on too much of his own pain, and it finally caught him up.”

Severus was silent, and Hagrid seemed to take that as confirmation that Severus was ceding the point. “It’s pretty late…”

Severus chuckled. “You mean early, by now.”

“Ye should get some sleep.”

“You and I will not both fit in the bed along with him.”

“I’ll sit with him; you go back to our room in the castle.”

“Very well.” There was a rather uncomfortable sucking sort of noise. Harry felt his face growing warm as the sucking changed to soft sighing, and then suddenly he heard Severus chide in a quiet voice. “Not in front of Harry, Sweet. Even sleeping I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

Hagrid laughed softly, and then a cool hand touched Harry’s cheek before the door opened and shut again.

Harry would never understand how he was able to calm Hagrid and duck his questions long enough to get out of the hut and back to the castle, but he was grateful that he did. It was Saturday; there were students in the grounds and roaming the castle halls. Everyone was celebrating that it was a Hogsmeade weekend, and they were so excited for their bout of freedom that nobody noticed Harry as he made his way back to his dormitory room. He ducked behind a suit of armor when he saw Ron and Hermione coming, and then again behind a statue of a rather trollish wizard when he saw Draco, but other than that his trip was quick and before he had time to think he was back on his bed in his dormitory, silencing charms around the doors, firewhiskey in his hand and in his stomach (he’d summoned the empty bottle from the grounds and magically refilled it), watching as the room swayed back and forth slightly.

He was such a failure. There was no point in dragging this out; he knew that. He’d served his purpose, fought his fight. The world didn’t need him wrecking innocent lives anymore. He set the bottle down (or dropped it; he wasn’t really sure which) and stumbled over to the open window. He’d chucked the bottle down there last night after all…

Should he leave a note? Harry spent perhaps two minutes looking for parchment before deciding that it didn’t matter. They’d know why he did it. There was no need to leave a note and make it more dramatic in the end…

“Harry?”

Harry started, turned his head, and made eye contact with Draco Malfoy standing in the open doorway of their dormitory for a split second.

Then he turned and prepared to jump.

“_Accio_!”

“NO, DON’T!” Harry screamed as the spell pulled him sharply backwards, away from the window. He scrambled and tried to fight the pull, but it was no use, and in two seconds his back had smacked hard into Draco’s chest.

“No, Harry!”

“Let me go!” Harry cried, writhing in Draco’s arms, clawing at the steely grip that prevented him from leaping to freedom. He jerked and the pair of them stumbled forward, but still Draco held on.

“No,” Draco panted, latching his arms together against Harry’s stomach. “You’re not jumping out the window.” Harry lurched again, but Draco leaned into it and pinned him to by his stomach to the floor. “Harry, stop fighting me!”

“No!” Using every ounce of his strength, Harry stood, taking Draco with him, his own eyes still fixed on his means of relief.

“Listen to me!” Draco begged, still clinging to him for dear life. “This isn’t what you want, Harry. You don’t want to hurt yourself. You want the pain to end. You don’t want to die.”

“What do you know about what I want?” Harry barked, trying to elbow Draco in the ribs to loosen his grip, He landed on his target, but though Draco let out a grunt of pain and released all the air from his lungs, his hands held firm. “I’ve gotten so many people killed already; what’s one more?” He gained a foot or so as his elbow collided with a second target.

“And what about two more?” Draco challenged, his heels scraping against the stone of their dormitory floor. “Because if you jump out of that window, Harry Potter, you’ll be taking me with you.”

“Not if you _get off of me_!” Harry shouted, still squirming and clawing desperately.

“I’m not letting you do this!”

“It isn’t your choice!”

Draco leaned in close, his lips brushing softly against Harry’s ear, like a lover’s caress.

“Harry, I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that seemed to be pleading with Harry, and then Harry heard Draco murmur an incantation, and his world grew dark and silent as he felt himself sinking down…

“No…”


	12. Hate

“_Stupefy_!” Draco breathed. The effect was nearly instantaneous. As soon as the incantation was uttered, Harry stopped struggling to gain the dormitory window.

“No…” Harry sobbed.

Draco held Harry tighter as his body stilled, grew limp, and sagged forward. He eased Harry down to the floor, and as he released him, he realized that he himself was shaking like a leaf.

“I…” he gasped, staring down at Harry’s still form, his half-closed eyelids, his mouth slightly open. “I’m sorry, Harry…” He clenched his hands in his hair and put his head between his knees, trying to calm down. “I’m so…I’m so sorry…”

He couldn’t sit there apologizing forever, or Harry would wake back up, and they would be repeating the same scuffle again. He had to get help. He had to find someone who could help him keep Harry safe.

Draco stood up, hauling Harry with him, and draped Harry’s arm around his shoulders, the other hand keeping a tight hold on his waist.

The common room was mercifully empty when Draco eased the dormitory door open. Praying he wouldn’t meet anyone on the way, for Harry’s sake more than for his own, Draco started to half-drag, half-carry his friend out into the maze of corridors.

When the door to the Potions Master’s rooms opened, revealing the tall, rail-thin frame in his snow-white nightshirt and dark blue dressing gown, Draco felt a rush of relief so great he had to lean against the corridor wall to steady himself.

“Draco?” Severus asked, his eyes sweeping over the situation before him. “What’s happened?”

“He was trying to jump out of our dormitory window,” Draco answered quickly.

Severus’ eyes widened, and after a brief moment he stepped aside and gestured Draco in.

“I’m sorry,” Draco breathed as he crossed the threshold. “I didn’t know where else to…” Draco felt his words dying in his throat. The Potions Master’s living quarters looked quite different now from when Draco had last seen them, when he’d been obliged to share the space with Severus the last year. The roof had been magically enchanted to be at least twenty feet higher than it should have been, and the fireplace where Severus usually had his large, comfortable leather armchair, there was now a second one beside it, large enough that Draco and Harry could have used it for a bed. The now too-tall and too-wide door that led from his sitting room into his bedroom was open, and Draco could see that his bed had also been replaced by one large enough to accommodate six or seven grown men. He turned to Severus and was surprised to find him coloring slightly, as though he were uncomfortably aware of Draco’s examination and was hoping not to be asked to explain himself.

“Sev’rus?” a voice called softly from the bedroom, and a great bushy, shaggy head poked out of the bedroom door. Hagrid was also in a nightshirt, pulling on a dressing gown of his own, and when his eyes found Draco, the bit of his face that wasn’t covered in hair blushed scarlet. “Ah… bad time?”

“No,” Severus answered, avoiding Draco’s eyes and crossing to the door. “Rubeus, something has happened to Harry. I don’t know what yet, but I believe he is unwell. Could you make some tea for us please?”

Hagrid’s eyes turned a bit fearful, resting too long on Harry’s limp form, but he nodded, and after receiving an encouraging touch and a kiss from Severus, he moved to the fire and began his task.

“Draco, bring Harry over here,” Severus asked, indicating a sofa near the other side of the room.

Draco obeyed, trying not to stare at the two teachers as he did.

Severus’ cool hands touched Draco’s cheek. “Who hit you?” he asked softly.

Draco swallowed hard, and in a quiet voice he explained what happened after he’d found Harry on the window.

“I didn’t know what to do for him, but…I…well, after all the help you gave me last year…”

“I understand,” Severus assured him as Hagrid handed them each a mug of tea and sat in his huge armchair with his own cup. “I will take care of Harry when the Stunning spell wears off, but for now, let me tend to you.”

“To me?”

Severus gestured to Draco’s arms, and Draco was surprised to find angry red stripes down his forearms.

“They’re just scratches.”

“I did not ask how severe they were,” Severus reminded him.

“I’ll sit with Harry, sir,” Hagrid offered. Severus smiled, and an unspoken sort of communication passed between them, so intimate that Draco had to look away, feeling like an intruder in the moment. When it was over, Severus escorted him into his office.

“So…you and…I mean…”

“Rubeus and I have been, as he puts it, ‘mated’ for just over four years now,” Severus cut in smoothly, “I trust you will allow me to spare you the more…intimate…details.”

“I don’t want to hear about how the two of you…” Draco couldn’t bring himself to finish his thought. “But I would like to know how you ended up together?”

An almost fond smile twitched in the corners of Severus’ mouth as he approached Draco with an array of ingredients and a cauldron that was already heating up. “Rubeus helped me out with a small problem I was having during one summer holiday,” he explained as he handed Draco some daisy root to shred. “It began a habit of regular visits and conversations, and before we knew it… we were together.”

“But he didn’t live with you last year, why…?”  


Severus took the shredded roots and handed Draco another ingredient.

“Several reasons; the most obvious of which was that until a few months ago I was considered a spy and a traitor and the right hand of the Dark Lord. The second is that until very recently homosexuality was viewed as an extreme taboo. It still is in the muggle world, but after everything that the Dark Lord has put us through, our world seems to be less concerned with who loves who and more concerned with keeping those we love close, no matter what.”

Draco thought over Severus’ words as they silently continued their work. He’d known the social culture of his own people, but he hadn’t really paid attention to how much it had changed. Sexuality had never exactly been the forefront of his thoughts with everything else that the Dark Lord had heaped onto his plate, and now that it was…

“I’m happy for the two of you,” he said at last, watching Severus stir the now-complete potion. “And for the rest of us, too.” He glanced at the cauldron. “What sort of potion are you making?”

“Does it matter?” Severus asked. “It helped to calm you, did it not?” Using his ladle, he transferred the potion from the cauldron into glass jars and set them on his shelves. “Come,” he said, gesturing for Draco to follow him back into the living room.

Harry was stirring slightly on the sofa, blinking slowly and sitting up carefully. Now that he could see Harry’s face properly, he realized that Harry was drunk beyond belief; his vivid green eyes were bloodshot and red, the pupils unfocused and glazed, and he swayed slightly as he began to straighten himself.

“S’you,” he said dully, his dazed eyes suddenly focusing into a glare that pierced Draco right through his heart.

“Harry, I’m sorry,” Draco said quietly. “But I didn’t want to lose you.”

Harry scoffed. “Whatever,” he slurred.

“Please, don’t-” Draco began, but before he could say anything else, Harry leapt up, stumbling as he did so but managing not to fall.

“No you don’t!” he barked. “What right d’you have doing this to me? If I wanted to do it, it was _my_ business, not yours!”

“Harry!” Hagrid sounded shocked. “Harry, don’ be sayin’ things like…”

“I’ll say whatever I please!” Harry spat at his oldest friend, his first friend. “Don’t defend him! You don’t even know what this is about!”

“According to Mr. Malfoy, you tried to leap from the window of your shared dormitory,” Severus said smoothly.

Harry laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “Of course the little traitor told you,” he growled, and Draco almost felt his heart break in his chest at the scathing insult.

“Harry-”

“So what if I did?” he asked angrily. “What’s it to any of you? Why do you get a say in whether or not my life gets lived?”

“Because whether you like it or not, Harry,” Severus said in a sharp, cutting voice, “the three of us care about you, and we do not wish you to throw your life away when it isn’t necessary.”

Harry murmured something that Draco couldn’t hear.

“What?”

“I said maybe that’s the point,” Harry forced himself to repeat, and the pain behind the words was thick and heavy in his voice.

“Harry…” Draco stepped forward, but Harry pulled away sharply.

“Stop it!” He snapped. “Stop with the pity and the guilt! I don’t care that I’m unnecessary, and I don’t want you using me to make you feel like you are!”

“I-what?” Draco felt his heart shatter a second time.

“Harry!” Hagrid scolded, but Harry paid him no mind.

“Just because you haven’t done anything since crawling out of Voldemort sewer, it doesn’t mean you get to use me as a redemption case!” he shouted, his bloodshot eyes burning.

Draco didn’t say a word in reply.

“You don’t get to use me to make yourself feel like you finally get a place with the rest of us!” he continued hotly. “Saving me isn’t going to bleach that mark off your arm!”

“ENOUGH!” Severus screamed, and the next thing they all knew, Harry was lying on the sofa once more, his mouth moving and cursing wildly but no sound coming out, unable to sit up straight, still glaring daggers at Draco.

Draco stayed silent.

“Potter,” Severus said with forced calm, “You will confine your remarks to those which express civility or I will hold your tongue for you.” He turned to Hagrid. “Darling, do you mind staying in our hut for now? I think it is best if I handle this alone.”

Hagrid looked thoroughly upset, but he nodded and gave Severus a quick kiss before leaving the room.

“Draco,” Severus turned to Draco, his voice exceedingly gentle and soft. “Draco.”

Draco forced his eyes away from Harry’s silent, furious face. Severus placed one arm around Draco’s shoulder and walked him out of the room, holding him close as they made their way towards the Ambrosius common room.

“Pay him no mind,” Severus whispered, “He is likely still drunk, and he is angry because he did not achieve his goal. He will feel differently in time.”

“He hates me for saving him,” Draco said, hearing the childlike sadness in his own voice.

“He does not hate you, he hates that he is still in pain, and the only way he can think to express that is to give you pain in return. It is almost but not quite the same thing.”

“I hated you for saving me,” Draco muttered quietly, and they stopped walking. “I hated you for saving me in that bathroom, and I hated you even more when you saved me from the Astronomy Tower, and then…” he rubbed his left forearm self-consciously. “I’m sorry, Severus.”

“Shhh.” Draco found himself enveloped in black silk and wool, cool hands soothing on his shoulders, his nose filled with the scent of leather and herbs, and the tears that had been threatening to break loose suddenly died away; there was no need for them now, as though Severus had in offering him comfort simply siphoned away the worst of his pain.

“Go inside and get some sleep,” Severus instructed. “Try not to dwell on what has happened. I promise, it will get better.”

Draco nodded against Severus’ chest.


	13. Trauma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title sort of speaks for itself, but again, please be careful

Harry woke up Sunday morning with an enormous pounding in his head. He opened his eyes, and when the bright fall sun hit his eyes, he clapped a hand over his mouth and ran for the nearest dumping place he could find; a wastebasket near the fireplace.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” a silky voice called from behind him, “to not attempt to pickle your innards with firewhiskey.”

Harry groaned.

“In future, please feel free to take that mess into the bathroom,” Severus continued coolly.

“In future?” Harry rasped. “How long do you plan to make me stay here?”

“Until you no longer wish to die.”

Harry slumped against the fireplace wall. “We may be here a while,” he lamented.

“And one more thing; what do you recall of your conversation with Draco?”

Harry frowned, thinking hard. “Draco was here? What, did I ask for him or something?”

For the first time in two years, Harry saw his Potions teacher’s eyes grow cold and hard, the way they used to when Snape suspected, usually correctly, that Harry was not paying attention in his class.

“No. Quite the opposite, in fact. You accused him of betrayal because he saved your life.”

Harry had felt miserable before, but realizing what he’d done to his best friend, he suddenly felt very small.

“I didn’t know sir.”

“You also told him that you did not want to be his tool.”

“I didn’t mean that either, sir. I don’t even remember saying it.”

“And I believe your parting words were that you would not, as you so eloquently stated, ‘bleach that mark off his arm.’”

“I understand,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

“Do you? Do you understand that he almost died doing almost precisely what you threatened?”

Harry’s head snapped up and he winced as stabbing pains assaulted his temples. “He what?”

“He attempted to carve his Dark Mark from his body,” Severus explained. “I also caught him once scrubbing his arm so hard he’d nearly taken all of his skin off. He is more ashamed of that Mark than he is of anything else in his life, and he carries a great deal of shame for those crimes as well. And throwing that back in his face is a rather pathetic way to repay him for saving your life.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Regardless of whether you’d chosen to end your life, you and I both know that death was not necessarily the goal. Suicide is never, _ever_, a true wish for death. It is only a wish for the end of the pain, and Draco found a way to help you with this problem without resorting to death.”

“Okay, I get it,” Harry snapped. “D’you think we could skip the lecture just this once?”

Snape’s cool hand gripped the front of Harry’s robes and hauled him to his feet with a strength that Harry didn’t realize his Potions teacher possessed.

“No,” he said, his nose an inch from Harry’s, “we cannot ‘skip the lecture.’ You did not see the pain on Draco’s face. You do not understand the torture that boy went through. You insist on throwing the mistakes people make back into their face, and now you’ve brought yourself to the point that even saving you from suicide is not enough to keep you off of insulting those you once saw as ‘bad.’ So no, _Potter_, you will not get out of hearing me when I call you out on your cruel, manipulative, _abusive_ behaviors.”

“‘Potter’ now, is it?” Harry spat back. “Do you know which Potter you’re talking to then?” He didn’t fight Snape’s iron grip, only stared back into those cold, black eyes with defiance flaming in his own.

Snape’s lips curled back from his teeth the way a dog’s might when it growls, warning those who approach that now is not the time. “You are Harry,” he said with enormous difficulty, his voice on the very edge of control. “But your resemblance to James is certainly growing right now.”

At that, Harry yanked himself away from Snape. “Just because I said some stupid stuff while I was drunk doesn’t mean that I’m going to throw you upside down out of spite!” he shouted. “It’s not as if I targeted you for _seven years_ because of what someone else did to me. I wasn’t the one who made your life miserable over something that wasn’t your fault!”

“I have already admitted to not having handled myself the best where our past relationship was concerned,” Snape answered, his voice shaking, “and have already apologized. Your father and his goons attacked me _daily_ during our time together at Hogwarts…” his eyes were very bright. “They verbally attacked me, they _physically_ tormented me, and even at times made me the theme of their sexual provocations. You will forgive me if I had trouble dealing with that level of trauma. I was thirty when my attacker’s doppelganger was thrust into my life and told that I was to lay _my life_ on the line for a reminder of every awful memory I’d ever suffered. It was not exactly the easiest thing to process for me.”

Harry gaped at Severus as silence fell.

“…He…he actually…?” Harry whispered.

Severus closed his eyes. “I have never exactly been open about who I am, but it was blatantly obvious that I had no sexual interest in women, despite everyone’s claims that I was obsessed with your mother.” His voice was trembling with suppressed calm. “Your blessed father and his friends saw fit to punish me for what I could not control. Why do you think the first thing he did in that memory was flip me over and threaten to take off my underwear?” He took a deep breath. “Harry,” he said, “I am not trying to excuse either of our actions towards each other in the past. We were both awful, and we know that. There is no reason to bring it up every time one of us is angry with the other; it will only further breed resentment.”

Harry nodded, his eyes moving to stare at the floor.

“What I need you to hear is this; however understandable your mental state might have been when Draco brought you to me last night, it does not excuse your behavior to him. You are a caring individual most of the time, but when you are angry you think less before you speak, and that is dangerous.”

Harry nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Do you understand that I am not angry with you?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know why I act like that.”

Harry felt his face pressed against Severus’ chest, inhaling the strong scent of leather and herbs.

“I’m sorry you didn’t have a choice in protecting me,” he mumbled, his voice further muffled by the dressing gown.

“Had I been given a choice, it’s the one I’d have made,” Severus promised.

“My father was a monster to you.”

“And your mother my dearest friend. Life is complicated, Harry, but that doesn’t make it less worth the living.”

Harry hugged Severus back, squeezing tightly to his emaciated form and drawing comfort from his embrace.

“Is this why everyone gets taken from me?” Harry asked, feeling stupid and childish for asking.

“Is this why every time I get close to someone I lose them?”

Severus loosened his hold and pulled Harry backward so they were looking into each other’s eyes. “The people you have loved have been taken from you in the past because of circumstances outside of your control. Your trial is over, and this will cease happening now that the man taking them from you is gone.”

Harry swallowed. “That’s not how it feels,” he resisted.

“Time will ease the lie your brain tells you, if you allow it.” Severus gestured to his sofa. “Sit down, and I will make breakfast…”


	14. Christmas

Harry stayed in Severus’ room for the remainder of the term, until Christmas break. He’d had no visitors, by his own request, but Severus told him long-suffering tales of everyone from Neville Longbottom to Hermione and Ron to Headmistress McGonagall demanding to see him, and only leaving very reluctantly once Severus assured them that Harry was fine but in no mood for visitors. The one person who never stopped to see him was Draco, a fact that tore Harry apart. He’d lost his chance with Draco before he’d even gained the courage to try, and even worse, he’d lost a best friend in the process.

Hagrid returned to the apartments the last day of term, and though Severus and Hagrid urged him to, Harry declined the invitation to stay. Dudley had already invited him to stay with him and his fiancée, Astoria, for the Christmas holidays, and Harry had already accepted.

Harry knocked on the door to Dudley’s flat in downtown London, shivering in the freezing, spitting rain. He half-expected his cousin to laugh at him and slam the door, even though he knew that was just their past talking, not the reality of who Dudley had become.

When the door did open, Harry was greeted by a pale woman with beautiful dark hair and startling blue eyes. She smiled wide. “Harry!” She said, and hugged him before he could react.

“Astoria _Greengrass_?” Harry asked. He’d known the names were similar, but he hadn’t realized that Dudley was dating the girl he’d actually gone to school with! “You and Dudley?”

“I know, it’s weird isn’t it?” a voice from the next room said, and Harry turned to see Dudley in the doorway to the sitting room, smiling nervously as Astoria released Harry. He’d slimmed down quite a bit since he and Harry had shared a house together. He was always going to be big and bulky, but now it was more muscle than fat, and he was down to only one chin. Harry whistled.

Dudley looked down at himself and laughed. “Gym, and a _lot_ of life changes,” was all the explanation he offered and all that Harry needed.

“Er…nice place,” Harry offered. After nearly a month of isolation, he felt awkward being around people suddenly, and especially around Dudley Dursley of all people.

“Thanks,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. His watery blue eyes swept over Harry, and his pink face screwed up in concentration. “Story,” he said, and Harry realized he was addressing his fiancée, “could you put on some tea? I’ll get Harry settled and we’ll be down in a bit.” Taking Harry’s trunk in one hand, Dudley easily dragged it towards the staircase.

“You look like Hell,” he said once they were out of earshot. “What’s happened?”

At first, Harry considered assuring him that everything was fine, that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Hell happened,” he answered, and before he knew it he was spilling his guts out to his cousin, telling him everything he thought and felt since the end of the War, his budding friendship with Draco that had turned into a romance that Harry had accidentally-on-purpose stomped on, and how empty, how fucking _empty_ he had been feeling about everything. He even told Dudley about his attempt, and how Draco had saved him, and how he’d driven Draco away.

“…Severus says it’s just bad memories talking and that time will make it feel better, but it’s been a month and I don’t feel any better about any of this.” Harry sighed. They were both sitting on the bed, his things unpacked and arranged neatly around the small but cozy room. “I don’t know how to make any of this go away, and I can’t handle being without Draco but I can’t handle being with him and ending up having him being taken away.”

Dudley put his huge hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to make those feelings go away except by seeing proof that they aren’t true anymore. But as far as this other guy goes, think of it this way…you said you didn’t like each other at first right? Well, we didn’t like each other all that much when you first came to live with me, but I’m here now, aren’t I? Maybe you and he have a shot just because you used to hate each other.”

Harry blinked slowly, and as absurd as he knew that imitation of logic was, it made sense to the part of his brain that he couldn’t convince without proof.

Harry spent the days up until Christmas helping Astoria bake every sort of sweet imagined; she made pumpkin pies and baked apples and cookies like Aunt Petunia had made for her holiday dinners, but she also made wizard crackers and chocolate frogs and cauldron cakes and Peppermint Imps and other magical delights. He had half-expected her to be doing all the work, but Dudley and he spent most evenings after a day of baking and a sumptuous dinner cleaning the kitchen until it was spotless, a trait his mother had unconsciously developed in him.

“So how did you and she end up together anyway?” Harry asked one day while he and Dudley were washing the dishes and Astoria was lounging in the next room watching television.

“I met her in the counseling center where I’ve been working,” Dudley explained, and Harry watched him blush.

“A counselor? Really?”

Dudley nodded. “I’m going to school and paying for it with the job there. Anyway, she came to us because I guess there isn’t much in the way of mental health where you lot…” he stopped, giving Harry a sideways glance, and amended, “…where wizards are concerned. She’s been through some pretty awful stuff. I’m just the janitor when we met, and the more she came in the more we talked, and here we are.”

Harry smiled. “Sudden, don’t you think?”

Dudley grinned too, and Harry marveled that he’d never seen such a genuine expression of contentment on his cousins face. “Maybe a bit,” he admitted, “but can you blame me? She’s amazing, isn’t she? Not just the cooking and things, but the way she just…” he sighed. “she just lights up the room when she’s here, Harry. I couldn’t help it.” He placed his dish in the cabinet and took the next from Harry to dry.

“What do Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon think of it?” Harry couldn’t help asking.

Dudley’s face went red, and his watery eyes darkened a bit. “They’re not happy,” he said finally. “And they’ve hinted that they don’t want to pay for their son to become a ‘pansy head-doctor’ or to marry ‘one of them’, but I don’t care. Counselling is what I want, Story is who I want, and if they don’t like it then they don’t have to come to my wedding.” He eyed the floor. “But I would like you to be there,” he mumbled. “As…as my best man.”

Harry stared.

“I know it’s a bit sudden,” he said quickly, “and I know that after what all I put you through there’s not really a right here for me to ask, but…but I want things to be different between us and I just really want you there for me, if you want to.”

Harry set the plate he’d been washing back in the sink, and as awkward as it was, he reached out and embraced his cousin.

“Wild hippogriffs couldn’t keep me away, Dudders,” Harry said quietly, and Dudley laughed loudly as he returned the hug offered him.

Christmas Eve was spent sitting around the fireplace in Dudley’s flat, drinking cocoa and sharing silly stories on each other. Harry felt safe and loved for the first time in so long, and he was grateful for the first time in his life to have Dudley Dursley as his cousin. Astoria was a riot, entertaining them with so many silly, stupid stories that Harry’s muscles were sore and he was certain one of his ribs cracked. Now he knew why Dudley called her “Story.”

Harry woke early on Christmas morning to a small pile of presents at his feet. Not wanting to open them without Dudley and Astoria, he carefully gathered them together and crept down to the sitting room where the tree was standing with all its pretty twinkling lights. As he bent to begin arranging his presents around the others, he stopped. Not only was he shocked to see that there were already presents there directed for him, but there was a shockingly small amount of presents addressed to Dudley and Astoria. Through their talks Harry understood that Astoria had lost her parents and her sister Daphne in the War, but ever since he could remember Dudley had woken on his birthday and on Christmas with presents piled high, so why now was there none from his doting Aunt Marge or even from his parents? Harry hastily snuck back to his room and hid the presents under his bed, deciding to open them later so as not to embarrass his cousin or their new-found friendship.

Harry had never had so much fun opening presents. Dudley received several new movies and a stress-relieving video game from Astoria and the best of the _Great Humberto_ series from Harry, which got them both laughing awkwardly about Dudley’s lamentations of missing the show the year Harry first found out he was to attend Hogwarts. Unsure what she would like, Harry bought Astoria a pearl and silver picture frame for hers and Dudley’s wedding photo, once it was taken, and she bought Harry a set of new quidditch robes which flashed Ireland and Bulgaria colors. Dudley had bought Harry his own set of quidditch equipment to match the robes that Astoria had bought, and Harry amused himself the rest of the day letting his new Snitch roam freely through the house, catching and releasing it every time their paths crossed.

After presents, Astoria took Dudley and Harry out to celebrate in her own family’s style of caroling until their noses were frozen. Neither Harry nor Dudley were all that great, but Astoria’s voice was beautiful and their mediocre tones did nothing to take away from hers. It was nice to see the smiles on people’s faces when they saw carolers at the door, and it brought Harry a sort of comfort he hadn’t realized he’d needed until he saw the happiness that it brought others. This was something that he could do to make others happy without having to be good at it. It was really just the idea that he’d wanted to sing for them that made these people happy, and it healed a small part of Harry to watch it.

Christmas dinner was the best Harry had had in a long time, and it was even better when coming home to it after all day out in the snow. Every course was better than the last, and by the time dessert arrived Harry felt like he was the one stuffed on the table, not the turkey. Not that this stopped him from having second and third helpings again.

As it turned out, Astoria loved music, and was not only a gifted singer but a wonderful piano player. She and Harry and Dudley gathered around the small piano in their flat and sang the same carols they had that morning, only this time they were singing for each other. Dudley kept indulging himself in the eggnog, encouraging Harry to do the same, but Harry refused. After all the trouble he’d had, trying alcohol again seemed like too much of a push. Instead, he laughed himself silly as Dudley kept singing the wrong lyrics, causing himself to laugh, and then picking up in the wrong parts of the refrain. Finally, they all wished each other one last goodnight, and Harry went to bed, feeling for the first time in six months that maybe the end of his story didn’t have to be the end of his life, too.


	15. Forgiveness

Draco saw him entering the Great Hall for breakfast, and stared determinedly at his toast. Fuck him. He didn’t care anymore. He would _make _himself not care.

He knew it was a lie, but it made him feel better in the moment. Ron and Hermione had been wonderful to him, giving him their shoulders to cry on and offering support whenever possible, but they couldn’t take back what Harry had said, and they couldn’t change the fact that desperate and angry as he’d been, Harry had spoken the truth. There was no getting rid of what Draco Malfoy had become, and there was no taking the mark off of his arm.

It wasn’t as though Draco was stupid. He knew that just because he’d been faulty in the past didn’t mean he wasn’t able to change. Harry…Potter…had even thought that at one time. The problem was he hated that damn mark and what it symbolized, and he wanted it off of his arm. But even if he did find a way to get rid of it, everyone knew it had been there. There was no escaping Death Eater treatment if once discovered to be one. This was the torment Severus went through every time someone tried to call him despicable or creepy or compare him to muggle hate groups. One mistake and no one would ever forget it. Not even Harry.

Potter…dammit, this was going to be hard.

“Can I join you?” Har…Potter, Potter asked.

Without a word Draco stood, nodded to Ron and Hermione, and left the hall.

Draco knew Harry was trying to talk to him, and admittedly it gave him a small sense of satisfaction to be able to deny him this one thing he clearly wanted so badly. It wasn’t that he enjoyed denying Harry anything, but it was nice to know he was strong enough to show that stupid Potter that yes his actions had fucking consequences and just because he’d been drunk when he’d hurt Draco didn’t mean it didn’t count.

Potions was only a small disaster. Harry and Draco had to work together at the same cauldron, Hermione pairing with Neville and Ron with Dean. It was difficult to correctly brew a potion when you couldn’t talk to your partner, and so their potion ended up too thick (more like a paste than a potion) and far too dark (Severus had asked for light silver, not charred pewter) but Draco was certain that at least it would work the way it was supposed to.

“Pack your things,” Severus called at the end of the class, and Draco immediately went to his back, arranging things deliberately slowly so that Harry would hopefully take the hint and leave.

“Can we talk?” Harry asked, his voice strained.

“You will if you please,” Draco paraphrased, “Why do I get a say in whether or not you say anything?”

“Draco…” Harry tried again.

By this time Draco had packed his things, and without looking at or speaking to Harry he rushed himself from the room.

Dinner was uneventful, sad and disappointing sitting all by himself and pretending he didn’t notice Harry trying to catch his eye, trying to pretend he couldn’t see Harry growing angrier by the minute. Draco wolfed down his dinner and hurried out of the hall to the dormitories.

He could hear Harry behind him, but he kept rushing at his breakneck pace.

“Draco!” Harry yelled, trying to catch him. Draco pretended he was deaf, that he was just running for the exercise.

A hand grabbed his own, holding him back. “Draco,” Harry panted, “please, just let me…”

“No!” Draco shouted, yanking his hand away. “No! You don’t have any right to ask that of me!”

Harry straightened up, his eyes wide. “Wha-you don’t even know what…”

“You’re going to ask me to let you explain why it was alright that you said what you did!” Draco heard himself snap. “You’re going to ask me to let you back in, to forgive the things you said to me because you knew they would hurt me. You’re going to tell me why it doesn’t count and I shouldn’t still feel hurt!”

“Wha-no! No I’m not!” Harry promised, so emphatically that Draco almost believed him. “I just want to apologize!” he put his hands together as if in prayer. “I have no right to ask forgiveness, and I’m not. I just want you to know how sorry I am, how much I wish I could take it back.”

“How sweet,” Draco sneered, his heart still breaking and unsure how to stop it. “You wish you could take it back. Does that make you feel better now that you’ve said it?”

Harry stared at the ground, shaking his head. “No,” he admitted, “but it wasn’t meant to make me feel better. It was meant to say that I’m sorry, nothing more.”

“How dare you,” Draco said, his voice shaking, “how dare you say what you did to me,” before he realized he’d done it, Draco gave Harry a sharp shove. “How _dare_ you call me a traitor because I saved your life?” Harry was backing up, but Draco was still shoving. “How _dare_ you use my own abuse and my own fears against me! _How dare you_ accuse me of trying to use you? _How dare you!_”

Harry was backed against the wall, Draco flush against him, pressing him into the wall, staring at Harry with his heart pounding. Harry’s eyes were confused, but the way they were pressed against each other, it was clear that neither one objected to the position. Quite the contrary.

“You hurt me,” Draco stated flatly, his voice thick with hunger.

“Yes,” Harry breathed, his voice now husky.

Draco stopped himself an inch from Harry’s mouth. “Never, _never_, hurt me like that again.”

“You have my word.”

And then Draco was attacking Harry’s mouth with his own, his hands pressed flat against Harry’s chest, trying to melt his own body into Harry’s. He could feel Harry growing hard and hot beneath him, and as he started sucking spots possessively down Harry’s neck, he heard a single word gasped out around a groan of sudden, unexpected pleasure.

“Uuunnngghh…ugh, equality….ahhh…”

Draco heard the suit of armor stand aside, and then he felt Harry’s hands pushing him firmly through the secret doorway into the common room. Then they were in their room, the beds pushed magically together, and Harry was _literally_ tearing Draco’s clothes off, licking and sucking and kissing wherever he found bare skin…

“…Draco…ooohhh…aaaahhh…._Aaah!_” Harry gasped as he came, and Draco slumped forward, his head on Harry’s chest, his body shaking and panting with pleasure. For a long time they just laid there, Harry’s legs around Draco’s waist, Draco so deep inside of him that it was difficult to tell where one of them stopped and the other one started.

“Harry…” Draco breathed, unable to catch enough air for much else. “Harry, that was…you were…” he shook his head. “_Wow_…”

Harry nodded silently, still gasping.

“I meant it, thought,” Draco found himself saying later, when they were cuddled tightly together, enjoying a happy, post-orgasmic buzz.

“Hmm?”

“I meant it,” Draco said again, turning to look at Harry. “Don’t ever hurt me like that again.”

Harry met his starry grey eyes easily, his own vivid green ones filled with regret but also with surety. “I won’t, ever again,” he promised, and then Draco was on his back, Harry sitting astride, rocking and kissing, holding tightly to Draco and loving him like no one had ever loved him before.

Draco and Harry both knew that this was not the solution to their problems; they both knew they had a long road ahead of them, and sex was not the cure. But just for now, it was nice to be able to put their issues aside, and just take comfort in knowing that they were each wanted and loved, and most importantly, forgiven...


End file.
